Classification-What does it mean!🧐

[Ichha]

I observed mealy bugs and white fly on my phyllanthus fraternus plant .

And this lead us to discussing and differentiating between the two organisms
An organisms is classified on basis of its Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, and Species
For whitefly

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: arthropoda
Class:Insecta
Order:Hemiptera
Family:Aleyrodidae

For mealybugs

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: arthropoda
Class:Insecta
Order:Hemiptera
Family:Pseudococcidae

Upto to order it’s the same for both pests
But we often tend to overlook the meaning of some classification just like hemiptera and just mug it up . This issue was seen in chatshaala amongst us students.

Every word in science has a meaning hence it is important to understand the significance behind fancy classification terms.
We’ve heard terms like hemiptera , Diptera, Lepidoptera but never understood the meaning

Ptera comes from Greek word “ptero” meaning wing/feather
Likewise Diptera means (di-2 ptera-wing) two-winged for eg : drosophila ( fruit fly)

Hemiptera ( hemi-half ptera-wing) means “half wing” and refers to the fact that part of the first pair of wings is toughened and hard, while the rest of the first pair and the second pair are membranous. https://ucmp.berkeley.edu/arthropoda/uniramia/hemiptera.html
For eg : whitefly , aphid

Lepidoptera ( lepido[lepís]- scale ptera-wing) derived from the Greek word lepís, meaning “scaly winged"
for eg : butterfly and moths

[jaikishan]

Fantastic summary @Ichha which is this fungus? lets be careful of fungus in general and use sanitizer/mask,etc. Also can this be cultured on potato medium?

[Ichha]

The fungus here is suspected to be sooty mold
“The mold benefits from either a sugary exudate produced by the plant or fruit, or honeydew-secreting insects or sap suckers the plant may be infested by.”

Sooty mold

And yes I think it’s possible to culture it on potato medium as it also contains sugar which the fungus can use for its growth