Females
Being in the order Hemiptera (so-called "true bugs"), obscure mealybugs undergo incomplete metamorphosis; nymphal young closely resemble adults in body shape, take six to nine weeks to mature, and retain the use of all six legs throughout their entire lives. Depending on temperature, obscure mealybugs may complete 2-3 generations per year; females will lay clutches of several hundred orange eggs in cottony sacs, from which nymphs will hatch and emerge after about 5–10 days. If environmental conditions are too cold, young nymphs will remain in the sac until temperatures rise.
Obscure mealybugs lay eggs all year long, and during winter, under the bark of trees and vines (though there is no true dormancy). These overwintering populations include individual mealybugs from all stages of development, but are dominated by eggs and first instars; overwinter mortality for young nymphs is high, but a few individuals (normally the ones quickest to hatch) will survive and feed on the first spring leaves. Mortality in non-overwintering generations is greatly decreased.
Read more about this topic: Pseudococcus Viburni, Life Cycle
Famous quotes containing the word females:
“My father had declared a predilection for heirs general, that is, males and females indiscriminately.... I, on the other hand, had a zealous partiality for heirs male, however remote.”
—James Boswell (1740–1795)
“Here she comes, curst and sad.
Cupid is a knavish lad
Thus to make poor females mad.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Nature has not placed us in an inferior rank to men, no more than the females of other animals, where we see no distinction of capacity, though I am persuaded if there was a commonwealth of rational horses ... it would be an established maxim amongst them that a mare could not be taught to pace.”
—Mary Wortley, Lady Montagu (1689–1762)