larva
pronunciation
How to pronounce larva in British English:
UK [ˈlɑːvə]
How to pronounce larva in American English:
US [ˈlɑːrvə]
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- Noun:
- the immature free-living form of most invertebrates and amphibians and fish which at hatching from the egg is fundamentally unlike its parent and must metamorphose
Word Origin
- larva (n.)
- 1650s, "a ghost, specter," from Latin larva (plural larvae), earlier larua "ghost," also "mask;" applied in biological sense 1768 by Linnaeus because immature forms of insects "mask" the adult forms. On the double sense of the Latin word, Carlo Ginzburg, among other students of mythology and folklore, has commented on "the well-nigh universal association between masks and the spirits of the dead."
Example
- 1. The image above is of the larva of a ground-nesting solitary bee from turkey .
- 2. Afterward the larva spins a cocoon and falls into a ten-month slumber , waiting for spring .
- 3. Aristotle gets good marks for getting a lot right , including the semiaccurate observation that " ruler bees " put larva in the honeycomb cells .
- 4. The ichneumon wasp paralyses its prey without killing it and lays its larva inside this convenient source of fresh meat , to eat it slowly alive .
- 5. Instead , it secretes a glue and uses this to stick bits of sand together to form its casing , in the way that a freshwater caddis fly larva does .