Culex quinquefasciatus Say mosquitoes flourish in belowground stormwater systems in the southern United States. Recent evidence suggests that oviposition-site-seeking females may have difficulties locating, entering, and ovipositing inside permanent water chambers when surface entry through pickholes in manhole covers are sealed. It remains unknown, however, if newly emerged adults are able to ...

For spiders, gross female spermathecal morphology has been widely used as the major predictor of sperm priority pattern depending either upon taxonomic classification or on the number of ducts that connect with the spermathecae. In order to establish whether, or to what degree, the female reproductive tract follows a cul-de-sac (one duct connects to the spermatheca) or a conduit design (two duc...

To uncover similarities and differences in neurogenesis in arthropod groups, we have studied the ventral neuroectoderm of the spider Cupiennius salei (Chelicerata, Aranea, Ctenidae). We found that invaginating cell groups arose sequentially, at stereotyped positions in each hemisegment and in separate waves, comparable with the generation of neuroblasts in Drosophila. However, we found no evide...

Despite many aspects of the regulation of segmentation being conserved among arthropods, the evolution of novel gene functions has played an important role in the evolution of developmental regulation and the emergence of new segmental structures. Moreover the study of such novel gene functions can be informative with respect to the patterns and direction of evolutionary changes in developmenta...

The Southeast Asian pholcids Belisana tauricornis Thorell, 1898, Pholcus gracillimus Thorell, 1890, P. quinquenotatus Thorell, 1878 and Spermophora thorelli Roewer, 1942 are redescribed on the basis of the type material.

Four new species belonging to four genera of the subfamily Pholcinae are reported from Southeast Asia: Belisana protumida spec. nov. (male, female), Khorata bayeri spec. nov. (male), Pholcus schawalleri spec. nov. (male), and Uthina khaosokensis spec. nov. (male).