Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Primates
Family: Hominidae
Genus: Homo
Species: H. sapiens
Dr. Godshalk typically lives in the science center, making a small den for himself on the third floor next to Roon lecture hall. It is believed that he is a diurnal animal that comes out to feed on freshmen biology 101 students four to five times a week. He can reach a height of about six feet tall with a dark brown hair covering the top of his head.
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Diptera
Suborder: Brachycera
Infraorder: Tabanomorpha
Superfamily: Tabanoidea
Family: Tabanidae
This is considered the world's largest true fly, with over 4,500 species worldwide they make up both important pollinators and human pests.
The horse fly feeds mainly on nectar and pollen but females require a blood meal for reproduction. The female uses its mandible to rip open the flesh of usually a mammal to get to the blood.
The eggs of the horse fly is laid nearby water on either a stone or vegetation where upon hatching the larvae will go into the water feeding on small invertebrates like snails and worms
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Mollusca
Class: Bivalvia
Order: Ostreoida
Suborder: Ostreina
Superfamily: Ostreoidea
Family: Ostreidae
Ostreidae or true oysters are in the order of pterioda. True oyster species are hermaphroditic though some species produce generations that produce either male or female gametes.
Once the oyster is fertilized it sends up millions of eggs into the open water which develop into larvae in about six hours then mature fully in about two weeks.
Oysters are filter feeders using the mucus coating their gills to pull in suspended particles and plankton. The oyster can filter 5 liters of water a day. The oyster can also exchange gasses through their mantle which has small thin walled blood vessels lining it
Hederellid is an extinct reef forming animal that lived from the Silurian to the Devonian. Throughout history they were thought to be a type of bryozoans but do to their branching pattern and lack of a microstructure they do not fit in that phylum. It is now believed that they are more closely related top either phoronids or lophophorates.
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Arachnida
Order: Araneae
Family: Theridiidae
Genus: Latrodectus
Latordectus or Widow Spiders is a genus of spiders containing 31 different species. They get their name from the mating rituals commonly found in this genus of the female spiders eating the male after mating although this is not found in most species in this genus.
The venom found in the most famous species the black widow spider is called latrotoxin which is a neurotoxin resulting in latrodectism. Latrodectism is caused as the venom moves through the body causing the release of neurotransmitters. The symptoms start with severe pain in the bitten area then slowly spreads to surrounding muscle tissue, and then once the venom enters the blood it is carried by the circulatory system causing the toxin to spread to the nerve endings this stops the nerve endings from relaxing the muscle tissue causing tetany. The bite is particularly harmful from female black widows do to their large venom glands.
The characteristic hourglass is actually not always present in female spiders sometimes appearing all black. Male black widows are about a quarter the size of the female with a bite that is not considered dangerous to humans.
The silk form the species L. Hesperus is six times less dense then steel and has a tensile strength of 1290 plus or minus 160 MPa making them also stronger then steel. The problem from comes when you consider harvesting the silk, the spiders have to be kept in their own container and it takes a long time to get a lot of it making it difficult to use.
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Mollusca
Class: Cephalopoda
Subclass: Ammonoidea
More closely related to squid and octopuses then to nautiloids (having had convergent evolution) they are a good index fossil having a wide range in both time span and area. Ammonites first appeared during the Devonian period and did not go extinct until the end of the Cretaceous, the later species started to develop more and more complex sutures. There are three type of suture patterns found in ammonites Goniatitic which had undivided lobes this is found in earlier species, Ceratitic which has lobes that are subdivided and rounded undivided saddles this is found in ammonites of the early Mesozoic, and Ammonitic which has lobes and saddles that are both subdivided and this is found in species of the late Mesozoic.
It is supposed that most species lived in open oceans (having only found there fossils in rock layers with no benthic species) cat scans have shown plankton in parts of the buccal cavity hinting that plankton was there main food source. The presence of ink is also found in specimens at times so ammonites may have used ink to avoid predation like modern day squids.
The main difference between the Ammonite and the Nautiloids is that the siphuncle of ammonites runs along the ventral periphery of the septa while in nautiloids it runs through the center.
Ammonites may have had a jaw apparatus called aptychus in Mesozoic ammonites it would have been a pair or calcified aptychus.
Do to the long history of ammonites and their great diversity their size ranges from 23 cm to up to 2.3 meters depending on the species.
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Hymenoptera
Family: Apidae
Subfamily: Apinae
Tribe: Bombini
Genus: Bombus
There are over 250 species of Bumble bee living today; their blood is carried by an open circulatory system allowing the blood to surround the organs.
The queen stores the males sperm in a special organ called the spermatheca, before she lays her eggs she will either use them or not the non-fertilized eggs will grow into males while the fertilized ones will be female.
The queen also suppresses the hormones that would stimulate the growth of the ovaries in the female worker bees.
The bumble bee eats by extending its proboscis and drawing out nectar by capillary action.
The bumble bee is usually found in the northern hemisphere with a few exceptions in New Zealand and Tasmania.
