Elephantiasis

Elephantiasis

Elephantiasis-causes

The filarial nematodes belongs to the order Filaroidea. They are lipless and filiform worms in which pharynx is not bulbous, but muscular anteriorly and galndular posteriorly. Genital aperture in female in present in the pharyngeal region, and males are non- bursate. Following description belongs to WUCHERERIA (FAILARIA) Bancroft , the human filarial worm causing filariasis or elephantiasis.

Systematic Position

Phylum.   Nematoda

Class.        Phasmidia

Order.      Filaroidea

Family.     Filariidac

Genus.      Wuchereria

Species.    Bancrofti

Geographic Distribution

Wuchereria bancrofti has a widespread distribution throughout world except polar regions. It is found in Arabia, India, Malaya, China, Korea, Japan, East Indies, Brazil and , South Pacific Islands. It is realively absent from Europe, North America and Africa.

Habit and Habitat

Filarial worm isa dreaded human parasite of human blood and lymph. It is a digenetic parasite completing its life cycle in two hosts. Final host is man harbouring the adult worms, while intermediate host is a blood - sucking insect, usually a mosquito. Adult worm live coiled up in the lymph glands and lymph passages of  the man, where they often the flow of lymph.

Morphology

Adult worms are filiform and cylindrical in shape and both body wands terminate bluntly. They are coloured creamy white . Sexes are separated and there is a distinct secual dimorphism. Female measures 65 to 40mm and 0.25mm in diameter, while male 40mm and 0.1mm respectively. Mouth aperture is simply, without anterior muscular portion and a posterior glandular portion. An oesophageal bulb is lacking. Intestine is simple, as in other nematodes. Posterior end of male is sharply curved ventrally, containing a number of genital, papillae, caudal alae and two unequal copulatory spicules, Vulva or genital pore or female is located ventrally in the pharyngeal region, and provided, with pyriform ejector mechanism or ovijector.

AVES

AVES

AVES or birds arose in the Jurassic from orinthischian dinosaurs and have many characters resembling those of reptiles, consequently the two classes together are called sauropsida. It was not until the Cretaceous that birds became modernized, this involved both physiological and morphological changes, such as constant temperature , fusion of skull bones, formation of pneumatic bones, fusion of vertebrate to form a synsacrum and a suppression of the tail. But birds have become highly modified due to an serial life and show many differences from reptiles. Present day living birds number 8590 species , they are serial, terrestrial and aquatic.

                    AVES are bipedal, endothermal craniates with an exoskeleton of epidermal feathers on the greater part of the body. Body temperature is high and constant in correlation with their energy . Break and claws have hrony sheath, and feet are covered with scales. Bones of the skull undergo early ankylosis, there is a single occipital condyle, the upper jaw is formed largely by premaxillae, and the lower jaw has 5 or 6 bones. Fore- limbs are modified to form wings with a carpo- metacarpus and only the first three digits of the hand. Hind limbs articulate far forwards to support the body weight in standing, head of the femur is at right angles to the shaft, there is a tibiotarsus and a tarso-metatarsus, there are never more than four digits .the are clawed. Long bones  are light with air spaces and no marrow. The sternum has a central keel in flying birds.

cockroach fact

The common  cockroach

Class insecta of phylum Arthropoda is the largest in the Animals Kingdom , as there are more species of insects (about 80,000) than all other species of animals combined. Insects are air breathing and usually flying Arthropods. They are distinguished from other arthropods. They are distinguished from ithot arthropods by the possession of 3 pair of legs and usually 2pairs of wings. They include familiar example such as cockroach, grasshopper, houses flies, honeybees, etc. Cockroaches belong to the order Orthoptera. They are common pests of food industries, hotels, kitchens warehouse, etc.

Periplaneta Americana 

Wa Wa original named Boatyard Americana by Linnaeus (1758). It's original hone is supposed to be tropical Africa and not America , as the world . It has become well edtestablis almost thrithroug India.

Habit and Habitat

Cockroaches are found in place where there is warmth , dampness and plenty of organic food to devour. In warmer months , cockroachesarecommon outdoors, occurring in sewer, mabholma, dumps, outbuildings and woods pileshttps://littleebiologist.blogspot.com. Indoors, they are a common pest in kitchens, latrines, hotles, restaurants, godowns , storeroom, boardships, etc. They oriental cockroach prepers some what cooler places and hence it is conncomm found in toilets and behind baths and sinks.

                     Cockroaches are nocturnal creatures . During daytime , they remaur inxative and hinding. Their narrow and flattwnef body is adapted to slip into narrow and flattened body is adapted to slip into narrow creeks and crevices. During night, they show much activity and run here and there in search of food. They are curatorial insects i.e., fast runners, and rarely resort to flight. It has been reported that, at 25°c, periplaneta runs from 70-130cm per second . Being onnivoroom and scavengerous in diet, they devour any animal or vegetable substances and even non-living materials like leather, paper, cloth, etc., Causing great loss.

External Morphology

1. Shape and size and colour. Body of cockroach is narrow elongated , bilaterally symmetrical and dorso-ventrally ventrally flattened. The adult measure from 28 to 44 mm in length and 8to 10 mm in width. Colour is shining reddish - brown with a paler yellow area around the edge of tergum of promoting of prothorax and two dark patches over it 
2. Exoskeleton or cuticle. The entire body is  covered externally by a non- living brown-coloured, hard, jointed and chitinous exoskeleton composed of several layers or cuticle of body wall and  is secreted by the underlying hypodermis.
3. Division of body. Body of cockroach is distinctly divided into segments. These are group into well-known defined regions or tegmata.

INDIAN SCORPION

Palamnaeus: Indian scorpion

Class Arachinda of phylum Arthropoda includes such well-known and common forms as scorpions, mites and ticks. These are well dadepted for terrestrial life.

        The scorpion àre readily recognized by their elongated body with a flexible tail terminating by their elongated body with a flexible tail terminating in a sharp poison sting. They are the oldest known terrestrial arthropods. They belong to the order scorpionida which includes 7 families,nearly 73 genera about 1,000 species. The, parabuthus, palamnaeus, scorpio, Hormurus Androctonus, etc. The following description of scorpion us generalized but mainly relates to the Indian genus Palamnaeus.
Habits and Habita

Scorpion are of wide occurrence but are largely restricted to tropical and subtropical areas of the  world. They are especially abundant in deserts . They are fairly common in India , more abundant in deserts. They are fairly common in India, more abundant on the slopes of hills . They are solitary and secretive, hence rarely seen. They are largely nocturnal creatures. During day, they hide under stones, lg's, debris, old mattings, etc., in crevices or holes and underground in burrows. They become active at night when they come out of their dens to hunt and seek their prey. They are carnivorous and predaceous feeding chiefly upon spiders, also resort to cannibalism. They kill the struggling prey with their poisonous sting. Sexes are separate and during courtship , the male and female individuals seize each other's claws and perform a mating dance.
External Morphology

Shape and size. Body of scorpion is long , narrow, segmented and dorso-ventrally flattened. Size various from 3 to 8 cm in length. The smallest species is middle Eastern Microbuthus pusillus which is about 13 mm long . The largest indian species, palamnaeus swammerdami, grows to a length of about 15 cm, while Buthus tamulus, a common species, reach a length of nearly 8 cm.
Colouration. Colour various from shining bblack (in species infesting the tropical forests) to pale yellow (in form living in sand). Dorsal surface is usually darker than the ventral surface 
Body divisions. Bodu is covered with chitinous exoskeleton. It is made of 18 segments which are divided into two main regions: (1) a short anterior prosoma or cephalothorax, and (2) a long posterior opisthosona or abdomen enduen in a stinging apparatus.
Prosoma. Anterior prosoma or cephalothorax is broad and formed by the fusion of head with thorax. It's segmented character is indicated  by the presence of 6 pairs of appendages on the ventral side. These include small chelate chelicerae, large pedipalpi and 4 pairs of walking legs. Dorsally prosoma remains covered by a single m, large , four-sided chitinous plate or carapace. It's anterior margin is divided into two frontal lobes by a median notch. Carapace bear a pair of conspicuous simple median eyes, each raised on a small tubercle and closely placed together in the middle . In addition , 2 to 5 pairs of smaller lateral eyes are present along the antero-lateral margins of carapace. Besides appendages, the ventral surface of  prosoma also bear a single , small, narrow and usually triangular plate, the sternum, between the coxae of third and fourth pairs of legs.

Opisthosoma. Posterior plopisthoma or abdomen is long and natnar. It is made of 12 distinct segments and is further differentiated into two parts:(1)an anterior broad preabdomen or mesosoma, and(2) a posterior narrow postabdomen or metasomatism.

Black- fever

Leishmania Donovani 

Leishmania is a common common  parasite causes KALA AZAR or DUMDUM FEVER or BLACK FEVER in man. The secondary host is the blood sucking sandflies- Genus- Phlebotomus. Parasite generally infects the blood or liver cells and spleen.

• Habits and Habitat 

     In man L.donovani lives as an intracellular parasite in Leucocytes or cells of liver, spleen, bone-narrow, Lymphatic glands etc. Whereas in sand fly it undergoes multiplication and biological changes in the fire gut and salivary glands .

 Occurrence

   The parasite is common in Assam, Bangal, Bihar,U.P, Madras. It is also reported in Chain, Sudan, and in some parts of Africa and South America.

 Shape and Size

It is related like with pointed anterior end and slightly blunt posterior end. It is generally 2 to 4ú in diameter.

Structure

 Leishmania is diamorphic animal found in two forms-

Amastigote or Leishmania from:-

It occurs in reticulo endothelial cells of man . It is devoid of flagellum. Small, oval and colourless. Body is surrounded by athin elastic covering the pellicle .A big ecentric and active nucleus is situated in the centre and covered by nulcear membrane . Axoneme is present. Blepharoplasty and kinetoplast are connected with rhinoplasty.

Leptomonad or promastigote form:-

  Found in sand fly midgut . It is elongated, slender and spilndle shaped with large nucleus, blepharoplasty, kinetoplast and a long free flagellum. It is 15-20ù in width.

                 This form is uniflagellate. Each flagellum contain 9 periphiper and two central fibrils . Kinetoplast, blepharoplasty are as usual cytoplasm is colourless , homogenous and not differentiated in ectoplasm and endplasm. Nucleus is vesicular and distinct nucleolus. It is covered by double nuclear membrane having pores and 1ú in dimeter.

Life-cycle:

                As soon as the female sand fly bites a healthy person, it inoculated saliva in the body along with parasite of Leishmania . It become rounded or cells of blood, liver , or spleen . From there is derived its nourishment to through simole diffusion. After that nucleus enlarges and it undergoes repeated binary fission producing large number of parasites. By the pressure of large number of parasite ththe wall bursts. Again it attacks the fresh cells. By affecting large number of cells human beings suffers from a disease known as kala- AZAR. If this disease is not treated properly in time , then it becomes fatal.
                 When the sand fly sucks blood from a person suffering from Kala azar large number of parasites enters the body of fly . In the forget, it's it's amastugote firm turn into mastigote one and . After a week it migrated to salivary gland through hypopharynx. It sucks blood to a person and life cycle repeats.

Silkworm

Bombyx Mori 

Pure or raw silk is obtained from cocoons or insect belonging to the ordeLepidoptera. They are popularly

 known as silkworm or silkmoths. The most common silkworm is Bombyx Mori. Form the commercial point of view, it is the most important insect in the world, and huge industries have centred around the silkworm for many centuries.

• Habits and Habitat
•      Silkworm has been domesticated for so long that it can no longer survive in nature without human care . The original stock probably no longer exists. As a result of domestication for centuries and continued selection for certain qualities, the present day silkmoth is far from resembling it's ancient ancestors. The adult silk moths can no longer fly due to heavy body and feeble wings. The larvae have lost the capacity to search food and will starve uncleu the food is placed right near them. They are reared in domestication on a site of mulberry leaves . But , the adult moth does not feed during its short span of 4 to 5 days only. Commercial silk is secreted by the silk glands of larvae.
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• External Features  

Adult silkmoth is a medium sized insect, about 25 mm long and with span of 40- 50 mm. Body is robust , creamy-white or yellow in colour , and divided into usual 3 regions: head , thorax and abdomen. Head is a small and bear a pair of compound eye, a pair of branches or plumed antennae , and degenerate siphonons mouth parts. Throat bear 3 pair of small legs and 2 pair of large but feeble wings marked by several faint brown lines . Entire body is covered by minutes coloured scales. Abdomen of female is larger and much distended due to great number of eggs it contains.

Trmites

Trmites

• Termites (order isoptera) are social insect and exhibit the most complex social life of all insects. Although termed white ants, they are neither while nor ants. They are brown or pale-coloured soft-bodies insects and are readily distinguished from ants by the absence of a pedicel between thorax and abdomen. They live in colonies with well-organised castes or polymorphism.
• Castes. There are two main castes of termites: fertliel males and females and infertile sterile males and females . Theses are differentiated into winged (alate) and non-winged (dealates) repridreprod individuals and workers, soldiers and nasutes.

1. Workers are wingless  forms with no or under-developed eyes. They collect food , look after the young, attend to the reproductive form and construct nest and passage ways etc.
2. 
   
3. Soldiers are large -headed, bigger-bodied individual possessing large and strong mandibles possessing large and strong mandibles . They protect the colony from the enemies. In some termites (e.g. Eutermes) the soldiers are replaced by
4. Nasutes which are also wingless and possess a rostrum that pours a sticky secretin for destroying enemies and dissolving hard substances.
5. Reproductive  male and female termites are called king and queen, respectively. They are wingless but devlode from sexual winged frons and live in royal chambers . The queen  has a much organs and eggs.

• Nests Most termites build underground nests . A good number of termites build high and large mounds raised high up the ground. Nests are generally made of chewed soil and contain small chambers with entery galleries and tiny holes servings as exists. There is also a large or royal chambers for the reproductive pair. Certain termites build their nests inside wood or on branches of trees.
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• Food  Cellulos is the principal foodstuff of termites. They feed on dead or living woods, cardboards and papers. Workers and young number, called a swarm. After descending to ground, they mate in pair. The royal couple then excavate a small chamber in soil which marks the beginning of a new colony. Both of them now shed their wings. Mating is repeated at regular intervals as the male cohabit with life. The first cluster of eggs ladid by the queen is looked after by big. The nymps, hatched out of theses egged, develop into many workers, and a few soldiers. In early years only workers and soldiers are formed, but later alates are also produced

            Abdomen of queen grows enormous so that she become 20 to 30 thousand times larger than a worker. On an average, the queen lays 4,000 eggs per day and about one million eggs per years. She lives for about 6 to 9 years.

             In termites, determination of caste depends upon the complex interactions between pheromones , hormones, variable food supply, and social behaviour, etc.

Hirudinaria granulosa

1. The Indian cattle leech

Class Hirudinaria comprises which are perhaps the most specialised annelids without parapodia and setae but with suckers.About 300 species of leeches are known to occur in the tropical and temperature part of the globe.Most of them are freshwater, while some are marine or terrestrial . Most of leeches are ectiparasiric, predaceous, feeding on worms, snails, insect larvae,etc.

        The genus Hirudinaria includes four species of Indian cattle leeches: H.viridis, H.javanica, H.manilensis and H.granulosa.

Habits and Habitat (Ecology)

Hirudinaria granulosa, the Indian cattle leeches,is found in India ,Burma,Shri Lanka, Pakistan and Bangladesh. It occurs in fresh water pond ,lakes,tanks,swamps and slow strems,where it either swims by vertical undulation or grips objects with its suckers and moves by looping. Like most ectioparasiric leeches, it has a blood sucking (sanguivorous) habit, feeding on the blood of fish and frog and also of cattle and men, who happen to enter the water inhabited by it.

      Through hermaphroditic, leeches copulate to bring about cross-fertilization. Eggs are deposited in cocoons. Development us direct, i.e.,there are no free larval stages in the life history.

External Morphology.

• Shape and size.  Hirudinaria has a soft, vermiform elongated and dorso-ventrally flattened body, ordinarily 10 to 15 cm long , but a full-grown specimen may even measure upto 35cm in length. Body is broadest near the posterior end narrowest at the anterior end. It is capable of causing great alterations in form and proportion, being ribbon-shaped when extended and almost cylindrical when contracted. In normally - streched leech, the dorsal surface remains somewhat convex with the ventral surface more or less flat. A transverse section through the body is almost oval in outline .Skin is moist and slimy due to abundant secretion of mucus, which helps in cutaneous respiration.
• Colouration. Body of leech is brightly coloured with characteristic markings. Dorsal surface is coloured olive-green and  ventral surface orange - yellow or orange-red. On the sides are conspicuous stripes of orange or yellow, bounded ventrally by broad black stripes and dorsally by black sport arranged in a series in the second and fifth annuli of each segment.
• Segmentation.  Body of leech is metamerically divided into 33 segments or somites. Except the Frist two and the last seven, each segment is further superficially subdivided into rings or annuli by closely-set grooves or furrows. A typical segment possesses the annuli are . Segments with less than five annuli are referred to as incomplete. A temporary clitellum is formed by segments 9th, 10th, and 11th, during , breeding seasons.
• Receptors. Surface of each annulus is duvided by fine longitudinal furrows into rectangular areas, each bearing a minute and elevated sensory paotlla, the annular reseptor. There are about 18 such receptors on dorsal and 18 on ventral side of each annulus receptor in dorsal and 18 on ventral side of each annulus. Besides these, there are large sensory papillae, called segmental there are large sensory papillae, called segment receptors or sensillae, 4 pairs on dorsal and 3 on ventral side in the annulus of each and 3 on ventral side in the tfrist annulus of each segment. A pair of eyes is borne on dorsal surface by the Frist annulus of each  of the five segments, which are termed the ocular segments. The 5 pair of eyes appear as a semicircle of black dots at the anterior end.

Suckers. Each end of the body bears a hollow muscular organ, to he sucker.

1. Anterior sucker. Anterior or cephalic sucker comprise the pristomium and three anterior body - somites. It is oval in outline with a ventrally directed, cuo- like hollow, called the pre-oral chamber, a the bottom of which lies the mouth.

Posterior. Posterior end of the body also bear a circular and highly muscular dude, the posterior or anal Acker, also directed downwards. It seven body segments (27 to 33) arranged in concentric rings.

           Both the suckers are primarily meant for adhesion and locomotion . The anterior sucker also helps in feeding.

Dragon fly

DRAGON FLY

The dragon flies (order odonata) are commonly found in the vicinity of water.They have long brightly coloured body,large headed and huge compound eyes that often contain as many as 30,000 lenses.Their gauze-like 2pairs of wings are large,membranous and each with a joint - like noudus or notch near the middle,and a coloured spot or pterostigma near apex of front margin. Antennae are small and mouth parts are chewing.Abdomen is greatly elongated. They are also known as the 'misquito-hawks' as mosquitoes from their main diet. Both the aquatic nymphs and adults are predaceous. Common genera are Agrian, Petalura, etc.