| He and his colleagues focused on the xylem tissue, which consists of tubelike elements that carry water and nutrients throughout the plant. |
| Medflies ruin crops when fertile females use their tubelike ovipositors to punch holes in the skin of a ripening fruit or vegetable, then pump their eggs inside. |
| Called the peduncle, the tubelike structure descends underneath the bell and branches out into more elaborate tubes for feeding. |
| When it shoves its tubelike mouthparts into a plant to suck sap from the xylem, the insect may transmit a deadly plant bacterium, Xylella fastidiosa, in its saliva. |
