aphidi-, aphid-, aphis +

A reference to an aphid.

The killing of aphids.

Living among aggregations of aphids.

Aphids, blackflies, greenflies; family of over 3,500 species of pear-shaped, soft-bodied insects (Homoptera) which move slowly over their host plants sucking juices and injecting toxic saliva; typically excreting honeydew or secreting wax for protection.

Life cycles are complex, commonly involving both parthenogenetic and bisexual reproduction and this Aphididae family includes many pests causing destruction of agricultural plants.

A reference to other insects that eat aphids; usually by laying their eggs into the aphids where the larva consume them.

Feeding upon aphides, or plant lice, as do beetles of the family Coccinellidae.

1. In zoology, the puceron, vine fretter, or plant-louse; a genus of insects, belonging to the order of hemipters.

The aphis is furnished with an inflected beak, and with feelers longer than the thorax. In the same species, some individuals have four erect wings, and others are entirely without wings.

The feet are of the ambulatory kind, and the belly usually ends in two horns, from which is ejected the substance called honey-dew. The species are very numerous.

2. A genus of insects belonging to the order Hemiptera and family Aphidae, including numerous species known as plant lice and green flies.

Besides the true males and females, there is a race of wingless asexual individuals which have the power of producing living young in rapid succession, and these in turn may produce others of the same kind for several generations, before sexual individuals appear.

They suck the sap of plants by means of a tubular proboscis, and owing to the wonderful rapidity of their reproduction become very destructive to vegetation. Many of the Aphidae excrete honeydew from two tubes near the end of the body.

Any of various small, soft-bodied insects of the family Aphididae which have mouth parts especially adapted for piercing and feeding by pulling the sap from vegetation: Aphids are plant lice which suck the sap from the stems and leaves of various plants and they develop wings and migrate to other places; especially, when there are too many of them in the area.

As small as they are, plant lice are big pests of many fruit trees and vegetable crops.