<P> The first recorded mention of thrips is from the 17th century and a sketch was made by Philippo Bonanni, a Catholic priest, in 1691 . Swedish entomologist Baron Charles De Geer described two species in the genus Physapus in 1744 and Linnaeus in 1746 added a third species and called this group of insects as Thrips . In 1836 the Irish entomologist Alexander Henry Haliday described 41 species in 11 genera and proposed the order name of Thysanoptera . The first monograph on the group was published in 1895 by Heinrich Uzel who is considered the father of Thysanoptera studies . </P> <P> The generic and English name thrips is a direct transliteration of the ancient Greek θρίψ, thrips, meaning "woodworm". Like some other animal names such as sheep, deer, and moose, the word thrips is both the singular and plural forms, so there may be many thrips or a single thrips . Other common names for thrips include thunderflies, thunderbugs, storm flies, thunderblights, storm bugs, corn fleas, corn flies, corn lice, freckle bugs, harvest bugs, and physopods . The older group name "physopoda" is with reference to the bladder like tips to the tarsi of the legs . The name of the order Thysanoptera is constructed from the ancient Greek words θύσανος, thysanos, "tassel or fringe", and πτερόν, pteron, "wing", for the insects' fringed wings . </P> <P> Thrips are small hemimetabolic insects with a distinctive cigar - shaped bauplan . They are elongated with transversely constricted bodies . They range in size from 0.5 to 14 mm (0.02 to 0.55 in) in length for the larger predatory thrips, but most thrips are about 1 mm in length . Flight - capable thrips have two similar, strap - like pairs of wings with a fringe of bristles . The wings are folded back over the body at rest . Their legs usually end in two tarsal segments with a bladder - like structure known as an "arolium" at the pretarsus . This structure can be everted by means of hemolymph pressure, enabling the insect to walk on vertical surfaces . They have compound eyes consisting of a small number of ommatidia and three ocelli or simple eyes on the head . </P> <P> Thrips have asymmetrical mouthparts unique to the group . Unlike the Hemiptera (true bugs), the right mandible of thrips is reduced and vestigial--and in some species completely absent . The left mandible is used briefly to cut into the food plant; saliva is injected and the maxillary stylets, which form a tube, are then inserted and the semi-digested food pumped from ruptured cells . This process leaves cells destroyed or collapsed, and a distinctive silvery or bronze scarring on the surfaces of the stems or leaves where the thrips have fed . </P>

Small arthropod with six legs and two wings