A Text-book of Entomology: Including the Anatomy, Physiology, Embryology and Metamorphoses of Insects for Use in Agricultural and Technical Schools and Colleges as Well as by the Working EntomologistPackard, A. S. (Alpheus Spring)
Science
A Text-book of Entomology: Including the Anatomy, Physiology, Embryology and Metamorphoses of Insects for Use in Agricultural and Technical Schools and Colleges as Well as by the Working Entomologist
Packard, A. S. (Alpheus Spring)
Insects
“To a certain extent the dermal colors may have been derived from
hypodermal colors, as the cuticula is secreted by the hypodermis,
and the colors may have been changed by oxidation and air-tight
seclusion. The cuticula is in certain cases entirely colorless,—so
in the green caterpillar of _Sphinx ocellata_; but the intensely red
and black spots of the caterpillar of _Papilio machaon_ belong to
the cuticula, and only the main yellow color of the body to the
hypodermis.” (Leydig, Histiol., p. 114.)
“The dermal colors are red, brown, black, and all intermediate shades,
and all metallic colors, blue, green, bronze, copper, silver, and gold.
The dermal colors are easily to be recognized as such, because they are
persistent, never becoming obliterated or changed after death.” (Hagen.)
Minot and Burgess refer to the cuticular colors of the cotton-worm
(Aletia), the dark brown color belonging to the cuticula or crust.
“Upon the outside of the crust is a very thin but distinct layer,
which in certain parts rises up into a great number of minute,
pointed spines that look like so many dots in a surface view. Each
spine is pigmented diffusely, and together they produce the brown
markings. The spines are clustered in little groups, one group over
each underlying hypodermal cell.” (U. S. Ent. Comm., 4th Report, p.
46.) Minot also shows that in caterpillars generally a part of the
coloration is caused by pigmentation of the cuticula.
In a dull-colored insect, such as the Mormon cricket (Anabrus), the
coloration, as Minot states, depends principally upon the pigment of
the hypodermis shining through the cuticula. “Most of the cells
contain dull, reddish-brown granules, but scattered in among them
are patches of cells bright green in color. I have observed no cells
intermediate in color; on the contrary, the passage is abrupt, a
brown or red cell lying next a green one. Indeed, I have never seen
any microscopic object more bizarre than a piece of the epidermis of
Anabrus spread out and viewed from the surface.” (2d Report U. S.
Ent. Comm., p. 189.)
The pigment may extend through the entire cuticula, but it is usually
confined to the outermost layers, and occurs there in union with a
peculiar modelling of the upper surface into microscopic figures which
are of interest not only from their delicacy, but because they vary with
each species. (See p. 184.)
The hypodermal colors, situated in the hypodermis, are, according to
Hagen, the result of a chemical process, generating color out of
substances contained in the body. They are easily recognized, since they
fade, change, and disappear after death. But where these colors are
preserved after death and enclosed in air-tight sacs, as in the elytra
and scales and hairs of the body, they persist, though, as we well know,
they may fade after exposure to light.
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