WEBSPINNER

also called Embiid, any insect of the mainly tropical order Embioptera of about 150 species. The fragile, yellow- or brown-coloured webspinner has biting mouthparts, feeds on dead plant material, and is from 4 to 7 millimetres (about 0.2 inch) long. Most males have two pairs of narrow wings and are weak fliers; all females are wingless. Webspinners have short, stout legs and run rapidly both forward and backward. They live together, several hundred in a colony, in silk-lined chambers and tunnels constructed either beneath stones or among mosses and lichens. Larvae and adults have silk-producing glands in an enlarged section of the foreleg. When disturbed the webspinner either retreats through its tunnels or pretends to be dead. The female cares for the large cylindrical eggs she lays, often covering them with particles of chewed food.