Word: larva
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...mystery. But scientists have deduced from the study of primitive species that rudimentary mechanisms against infection existed in various forms of life more than a billion years ago. The first inkling of such progenitors came in 1883, when Russian Zoologist Elie Metchnikoff stuck a rose thorn into the larva of a starfish and a short time later observed that the thorn had been completely surrounded by cells. The cells were phagocytes. "These little guys go back in evolution a very long way," says Carol Reinisch of the Tufts School of Veterinary Medicine. "They have the ability to distinguish between self...
Other aspects of Bower's research combine evolutionary, ecological and behavioral problems. "I'm going to start playing around this summer with a moth species that feeds on catalpa trees which contain large amounts of iridoid glycosoids," she says. The larvae of this species are gregarious and warningly colored but the adults are drab and cryptic. This type of life history suggests that the larvae are unpalatable but as they molt and become adults they are no longer unpalatable. "I don't exactly know what's going on with these guys, but I'm really psyched--it's really unusual...
...eliminate insects ranging from some of the most common pests, like clothes moths or carpet beetles, to some of the most exotic. He has dealt with pests, such as Ornithonyssus bacoti, a tropical rat mite; Pollenia ruidis, a form of cluster fly; and a rare species of beetle larva that was found in a shipment of books...