Spilostethus hospes

From WikiProjectMed
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Spilostethus hospes
Spilostethus hospes, darth maul bug
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Hemiptera
Suborder: Heteroptera
Family: Lygaeidae
Subfamily: Lygaeinae
Genus: Spilostethus
Species:
S. hospes
Binomial name
Spilostethus hospes
(Fabricius, 1794)

Spilostethus hospes, the darth maul bug, is a species of seed bug in the family Lygaeidae. It is found in Asia, Australasia, and Oceania.[1][2] Its common name is a reference to the Star Wars character Darth Maul, who shares similar markings.

Ecology

Females tend to be more frequent than males. To date, only one population of Spilostethus hospes has been identified to carry a male-killing endosymbiotic bacterium.[3] This bacteria has been shown to only kill males in this population, which may be one of the reasons that show a higher frequency of females.

References

  1. ^ "Spilostethus hospes". GBIF. Retrieved 2021-10-06.
  2. ^ Dellapé, Pablo M.; Henry, Thomas J. (2021). "species Spilostethus hospes (Fabricius, 1794)". Lygaeoidea Species File. Retrieved 2021-10-05.
  3. ^ Burdfield-Steel, Emily R.; Shuker, David M. (2014). "The evolutionary ecology of the Lygaeidae". Ecology and Evolution. 4 (11): 2278–2301. doi:10.1002/ece3.1093. PMC 4201440. PMID 25360267.

External links