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WIREWORM

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Originally appearing in Volume V28, Page 740 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.

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WIREWORM , a popular name for the slender, hard-skinned grubs or larvae of the click-beetles or Elateridae, a See also:

FAMILY

family of the See also:

COLEOPTERA

Coleoptera (q.v.). These larvae pass a See also:

long See also:

LIFE

life (two or three years) in the See also:

SOIL

soil, feeding on the roots of See also:

PLANTS

plants, and they often cause much damage to See also:

FARM

farm crops of all kinds, but especially to cereals. A wireworm may be known by its broad, quadrate See also:

head and cylindrical or somewhat flattened See also:

BODY

body, all of whose segments are protected by a See also:

FIRM

firm, chitinous cuticle. The three pairs of legs on the thoracic segments are See also:

SHORT, FRANCIS JOB (1857– )

short and the last abdominal segment is, as is frequently the See also:

case in See also:

BEETLE (O. Eng. bityl; connected with " bite ")

beetle grubs, directed downwards to serve as a terminal proleg. The hinder end of the body is acutely pointed in the larvae of the See also:

SPECIES

species of Agriotes (A. obscurus and A. lineatus) that are the best known of the wireworms, but in another See also:

COMMON

common See also:

FORM (Lat. forma)

form (the See also:

GRUB

grub of Athous haemorrhoidalis) the tail is bifid and beset with See also:

sharp processes. The subterranean habits of wireworms make it hard to exterminate them when they have once begun to attack a See also:

CROP (a word common. in various forms, such as Germ. Kropf, to many Teutonic languages for a swelling, excrescence, round head or top of anything; it appears also in Romanic languages derived from Teutonic, in Fr. as troupe, whence the English " crupper "

crop, and the most hopeful practice is, by rotation and by proper treatment of the See also:

LAND

land, to clear it of the See also:

INSECTS

insects before the See also:

SEED (from the root seen in Lat. serere, to sow)

seed be sown. Passing easily through the soil on See also:

account of their shape, wireworms travel from plant to plant and thus injure the roots of a large number in a short See also:

time. (See ECONOMIC See also:

ENTOMOLOGY (Gr. iv-roµa, insects, and Xiryos, a discourse)

ENTOMOLOGY.) Other subterranean creatures—such as the " See also:

leather-jacket " grub of See also:

crane-flies—which have no legs, and geophilid centipedes, which may have over two See also:

HUNDRED

hundred, are often confounded with the six-legged wireworms.

End of Article: WIREWORM

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