Plecoptera

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An order of aquatic insects whose nymphs live under stones in fast-flowing streams and whose adults have two pairs of membranous wings
2. A taxonomic group of insects, the stoneflies, whose larvae develop in cold running water and emerge as short-lived winged adults
3. Insects classed in this order are stoneflies, aquatic in their young stages and recognizable by their long antennae and flattened bodies

Etymology: Plecoptera is the name of an order of insects, the stoneflies, and it was coined by a scientist rather than inherited from any ancient text. The name was introduced by the Swiss entomologist Pierre-André Latreille in 1810, and it combines two Greek elements: "plekein", meaning "to plait or braid", and "pteron", meaning "wing". Latreille was naming the insects for their wings, which fold flat over the back at rest in a pleated or braided arrangement. The Greek roots were familiar to naturalists of the period, which is why they were a natural source for a new scientific label. The word therefore belongs to the large body of classical-based terminology that taxonomists built in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, so it was never a term used by the ancient Greeks themselves.

Synonyms: stoneflies