Most insects lay eggs. Some insects like cockroaches and crickets have offspring that looks a lot like the grown insects. However, they do not have wings, their genitals are not yet developed and they often have a different body shape and colour compared to the grown insects. Insects go through a number of development stages […]
Life cycle
In Denmark, there is one generation of harvest mites a year. The mites overwinter in the nymphal stage and evolve into adults in the early summer. The adult mites lay eggs in the ground. The larvae hatch in late July – early August. The active larvae are six-legged. They are 0.2-0.3 mm long, but because […]
Biology
Red mites are nocturnal. During the day they hide in cracks and crevices of birds’ nests. With caged birds, they often spend the day hiding where the perches are attached to the cage. The eggs are laid in the hiding places and the mites hide in them while molting. A female mite lays 10 eggs […]
An unusual family
When a water mite – one of the 2mm big ones – is spotted in the microscope, you will see up to several mites at once. There are both male and female water mites. The fertilized female mite finds an insect larva (or, in the lack of a better host, a human), which she latches […]
Life cycle
Fur mites lay eggs. Each female lays one or two at a time and they are placed in a distinctive web and secured to a hair close to the skin. This egg hatches into a pre-larva which is similar to a fly larva with finely speckled skin and a few protuberances on the anterior end. […]
Arthropod development
Most arthropods lay eggs, but there are a few that produce live young. One of the disadvantages of having an external skeleton is that growth cannot proceed gradually, and so during their life arthropods have to moult a number of times, becoming a little larger each time. Among the insects, development is associated with the […]