Arthropods in film Arthropods in film Arthropods, mainly insects and arachnids, are used in film either to create fear and disgust in horror and thriller movies, or they are anthropomorphized and used as sympathetic characters in animated children's movies. There are over 1,000,000 species of arthropods, including such familiar animals as ants, spiders, shrimps, crabs and butterflies. Early 20th century films had difficulty featuring small insects due to technical difficulties in film-stock exposure and the quality of lenses available. Horror movies involving arthropods include the pioneering 1954 "Them!", featuring giant ants mutated by radiation, and the 1957 "The Deadly Mantis". Films based on
Parasitic flies of domestic animals transmitted organisms to develop, multiply and be exposed to further vertebrate hosts where they can complete their life cycle. Only the adult flies are involved in this biological transmission, in contrast to biological transmission by other arthropods such as lice or ticks in which all active stages of the life-cycle feed on blood. Typical genera are "Culex", "Aedes", and "Anopheles". The basic structure of dipteran flies is illustrated in the diagram. Veterinary parasitology also covers arthropods in the Class Acari, the ticks of domestic animals and mites of livestock which have distinctly different structure from arthropods in the Class Insecta.