Crossword clues for coleoptera
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Coleoptera \Co`le*op"te*ra\, n. pl. [NL., fr. Gr. ? sheath-winged; ? sheath + ? wing.] (Zo["o]l.) An order of insects having the anterior pair of wings (elytra) hard and horny, and serving as coverings for the posterior pair, which are membranous, and folded transversely under the others when not in use. The mouth parts form two pairs of jaws (mandibles and maxill[ae]) adapted for chewing. Most of the Coleoptera are known as beetles and weevils.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1763, from Modern Latin, from Greek koleopteros, literally "sheath-wing," used by Aristotle to describe beetles, from koleos "sheath" (see cell) + pteron "wing" (see pterodactyl). Related: Coleopterous.
WordNet
Usage examples of "coleoptera".
He had dealt with the coleoptera and he was deep in the vascular cryptogams before the frigate turned her head north at last.
Most of the insects, in all the foregoing cases, were Diptera, but with many minute Hymenoptera, including some ants, a few small Coleoptera, larvae, spiders, and even small moths.
These consisted chiefly of Diptera, with some Hymenoptera, Homoptera, Coleoptera, and a moth.
Amongst his collection of insects were some very remarkable examples of new staphylins, a species of carnivorous coleoptera with eyes placed above their head.
Weldon, heedless that she gave him little or no attention, “this is the country of the manticoræ, and wonderful coleoptera they are, with their long hairy legs, their sharp elytra and their big mandibles.
The entomologist, who confines himself rigidly to the study of the coleoptera, is intended to typify this class.
Give me the Coleoptera, and the kings of the Coleoptera are the beetles!
Had he not made preparations of the very coleoptera the Scarabee studied so exclusively,--preparations which the illustrious Swammerdam would not have been ashamed of, and dissected a melolontha as exquisitely as Strauss Durckheim himself ever did it?
I have rarely seen a man so happy as my friend Martin: the coleoptera alone would have been worth the voyage, in his opinion, but as well as making a collection of very curious beetles he has also seen a boa, which was one of his great ambitions.
They saw little of Mr Martin for the rest of the day, and sometimes it seemed that he was as eager as his pupils to abandon sines, tangents and secants: he was in fact arranging his very large collection of the Brazilian coleoptera, hastily gathered and only now revealing its full wealth of new species, new genera, and even new families.