Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Either of the leathery or chitinous forewings of a beetle or a related insect, serving to encase the membranous hind wings used in flight.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun See
elytrum .
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun One of the anterior pair of wings in the Coleoptera and some other insects, when they are thick and serve only as a protection for the posterior pair.
- noun One of the shieldlike dorsal scales of certain annelids. See
chætopoda .
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A
sheath or outer covering, especially around the spinal cord or over the hindwings of certain insects.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun either of the horny front wings in beetles and some other insects which cover and protect the functional hind wings
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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I had assumed the yellow and black part was the wing cover the elytron of a beetle and the membranous part, which I thought was sticking out from underneath, was the hind wing.
Archive 2008-06-01 AYDIN 2008
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I had assumed the yellow and black part was the wing cover the elytron of a beetle and the membranous part, which I thought was sticking out from underneath, was the hind wing.
A bug not a beetle: Poecilocapsus lineatus AYDIN 2008
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When setting beetles or the like, this usually means pinning them through the right elytron.
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This griseous pilosity fills all the tips of the elytra, leaving bare only the sutures, an angular notch behind the middle (which forms with that apical part of the suture a kind of hook on each elytron), and two round spots, one submarginal fronting the tip of the notch, the other larger, discoidal, behind the foot of the notch, much above the tip.
Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society - Vol. 3 Zoology Various
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Complicant: when one elytron extends over the other and partially covers it.
Explanation of Terms Used in Entomology John. B. Smith
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Commonly one then may set the specimen with the left elytron and wing spread.
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Axis: a small process at base of elytron, upon which it turns.
Explanation of Terms Used in Entomology John. B. Smith
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Although comparatively free from pebbles or lumps of foreign matter, we detect in some of the coarser specimens small particles of mica and grains of other materials, and in one broken specimen the elytron of a small coleopterous insect.
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Towards the suture the elytron is raised so as to form a very prominent keel down the back of elytra; the general surface of the elytra is somewhat pustulose, and there are three slightly elevated, longitudinal lines, nearly meeting (but indistinctly) behind on the convex part of each elytron.
Journals of Two Expeditions of Discovery in North-West and Western Australia, Volume 2 George Grey 1855
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Of a yellowish bay colour, the head, thorax, and basal part of the three first joints of the antennae darker; the elytra soft, margined, with three parallel raised lines, not reaching the tip, the outer is on the side and not so distinct as the other two; there is also a short one running from the base of the elytron near the scutellum, and soon forming
Journals of Two Expeditions of Discovery in North-West and Western Australia, Volume 2 George Grey 1855
missanthropist commented on the word elytron
Greek
(To?) Cover.
July 11, 2008
MaryW commented on the word elytron
Menno Schilthuizen, Nature's Nether Regions: What the Sex Lives of Bugs, Birds, and Beasts Tell Us About Evolution, Biodiversity, and Ourselves</i> (New York: Viking, 2014)
December 26, 2015