While the majority of the Thysanoptera are thus vegetarian in their diet, and are frequently injurious in farm and garden, some species, at least occasionally, adopt a predaceous habit, killing aphids and small mites (so-called "red-spiders") and sucking their juices.
The beetles are hairy and their larvae well-armoured and often predaceous.
They are admirably adapted for moving through the soil, where some of them live on decaying organic matter, while others are predaceous.
The larvae in this family are well-armoured, active and predaceous.
The very large assemblage of forms coming under this order comprises the most highly developed predaceous sea-snails, numerous vegetarian species, a considerable number of freshwater and some terrestrial forms. The partial dissection of a male specimen of the common periwinkle, Littorina littoralis, drawn in fig.