FleaFlea, the common name for the order Siphonaptera, includes 2,500 species of small flightless insects that live as external parasites of mammals and birds. Fleas live by ingesting the blood of their hosts. Adult fleas grow to about long, are usually brown, and have bodies that are "flattened" sideways or narrow, enabling them to move through their hosts' fur or feathers. They lack wings; their hind legs are extremely well adapted for jumping. Their claws keep them from being dislodged, and their mouthparts are adapted for piercing skin and sucking blood.
TermiteTermites are a group of detritophagous eusocial insects which consume a wide variety of decaying plant material, generally in the form of wood, leaf litter, and soil humus. They are distinguished by their moniliform antennae and the soft-bodied and typically unpigmented worker caste for which they have been commonly termed "white ants"; however, they are not ants, to which they are distantly related. About 2,972 extant species are currently described, 2,105 of which are members of the family Termitidae.
MimicryIn evolutionary biology, mimicry is an evolved resemblance between an organism and another object, often an organism of another species. Mimicry may evolve between different species, or between individuals of the same species. Often, mimicry functions to protect a species from predators, making it an anti-predator adaptation. Mimicry evolves if a receiver (such as a predator) perceives the similarity between a mimic (the organism that has a resemblance) and a model (the organism it resembles) and as a result changes its behaviour in a way that provides a selective advantage to the mimic.
ButterflyButterflies (Rhopalocera) are insects that have large, often brightly coloured wings, and a conspicuous, fluttering flight. The group comprises the superfamilies Hedyloidea (moth-butterflies in the Americas) and Papilionoidea (all others). The oldest butterfly fossils have been dated to the Paleocene, about 56 million years ago, though they may have originated earlier. Butterflies have a four-stage life cycle, as like other holometabolan insects they undergo complete metamorphosis.
