Stinger

stinger

[′stiŋ·ər]

(petroleum engineering)

A support which is attached to the stern of a pipe-laying barge and which controls the bending of the pipe as it leaves the barge to enter the water.

A hollow tube, narrower at the bottom, that is forced into a gushing stream of oil from the wellhead to carry out well-control operations.

(zoology)

A sharp piercing organ, as of a bee, stingray, or wasp, usually connected with a poison gland.

McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms, 6E, Copyright © 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Stinger

 

the piercing part of the stinging apparatus of the females of Hymenoptera, suborder Aculeata. The stinging apparatus is located at the end of the abdomen and is an adapted form of the ovipositor, which has lost its egg-laying function and serves only for defense and attack. At rest the stinger lies in a special cavity inside the last segment of the abdomen. In use the stinging apparatus is moved outside, and the exposed stinger penetrates the body of the enemy or victim. In the process, a canal opens between the lower and central folds of the stinger, allowing a poisonous fluid to pass from a pair of glands, located in the insect’s abdomen, into the wound.

Sometimes the proboscis of the mosquito is called a stinger. The scorpion’s stinger is a needle with a canal at the end of the abdomen, with a poisonous gland at its base.

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.