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MEDICAL ENTOMOLOGY - the study of diseases caused by arthropods
Public health entomology - arthropods and human health
Veterinary entomology - arthropods and pets, livestock and wildlife
These fields of study are linked by the ecology of most arthropod transmitted pathogens and parasites.
Arthropods affect the health and well-being of humans and animals in several ways:
A. Direct Causes of Disease or Distress
B. Vectors or Hosts of Pathogenic Organisms
C. Natural Enemies of other medically harmful insects
Taxonomy and Systematics
Phylum Arthropoda:
The phylum is probably monophyletic, but with 4 distinct groups.
It includes lobsters, crabs, shrimp, centipedes, millipedes, insects, ticks, and mites, and spiders.
There are over 1 million species of arthropods, making up the largest phylum in the animal kingdom.
Insect Characteristics
THREE distinct body regions:
Head (feeding, sensory, CNS)
Thorax (locomotion, respiration)
Abdomen (feeding, reproduction)
Antennae are paired appendages usually located between or below the eyes.
Antennae vary greatly in size and form and are used in classifying and identifying insects. Some of the common antennae types are:
filiform - threadlike; the segments are nearly uniform in size and shaped like a cylinder (ground beetle, cockroach).
moniliform - look like a string of beads; the segments are similar in size and round in shape (termites).
serrate - sawlike; the segments are more or less triangular (click beetle).
clubbed - segments increase in diameter away from the head (Japanese beetle).
plumose - feathery; most segments with whorls of long hair (male mosquito)
Mouthparts
are different in various insect groups and are often used in classification and identification.
The type of mouthpart determines how the insect feeds and what sort of damage it does. It is important that the applicator have some knowledge of the these types of insect mouth parts:
chewing mouthparts have toothed jaws that bite and tear the food (beetles, cockroaches, ants, caterpillars, and grasshoppers)
piercing-sucking mouthparts are usually long slender tubes that are forced into plant or animal tissue to suck out fluids or blood. (mosquitoes, aphids)
sponging mouthparts are tongue-like structures that have spongy tips to suck up liquids or food that can be made liquid by the insect's vomit (house flies, blow flies)
siphoning mouthparts are long tubes used for sucking nectar (butterflies, moths)
lapping - to take in (a liquid or food) by lifting it with the tongue.
Concepts in Vector-Borne Disease
Geographic or host distribution of the parasite
Incidence of any given parasite and associated host
Parasite enhancement of transmission
Vector - a carrier, especially the animal (usually an arthropod) that transfers an infective agent from one host to another.
Biological vector an arthropod vector in whose body the infecting organism develops or multiplies before becoming infective to the recipient individual.
Mechanical vector an arthropod vector which transmits an infective organism from one host to another but which is not essential to the life cycle of the parasite.
