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
As regards the evolution of limbs of terrestrial arthropods, we have the
following stages: 1, the soft unjointed limbs of Tardigrades, ending in
two claws, and those of Peripatus, and the pseudo- or prop-legs of
certain dipterous larvæ; 2, finally the evolution of the long, solid,
jointed limbs of Pauropus and other primitive myriopods, the legs
forming solid, firm supports elevating the body, and enabling the insect
to drag itself over the ground or to walk or run. When the body is
elongated and many-segmented, the legs are necessarily numerous; but
when it is short, the legs become few in number, _i.e._ six, in the
hexapodous young of myriopods and in insects, or eight in Arachnida.
Whenever the legs are used for walking, _i.e._ to raise and support the
body, they end in a solid point or in a pair of forceps or claws. On the
other hand, as in phyllopods, where the legs are used mainly for
swimming, they are unarmed and are soft and membranous, or, as in the
limbs of the nauplius or zoëa stage of crustaceans, end in a simple soft
point, which often bears tactile setæ.
The tarsal joints are more numerous in order to give greater flexibility
to the limb in seizing and grasping objects, both to drag the body
forwards and to support it.
Unlike those of the Crustacea, the limbs of insects are not primitively
biramose, but single, the three-lobed first maxillæ, and secondarily
bilobed second maxillæ being the result of adaptation. Embryology on the
whole proves the truth of this assumption; the maxillæ of both pairs are
at first single buds, afterwards becoming lobed. All the appendages of
the body, including the ovipositor or sting, are modified limbs, as
shown by their embryological development.
It is noticeable that in the crab, where the body is raised by the limbs
above the bottom, it is much shorter and more cephalized than in the
shrimps. Also in the simply walking and running spiders, the hind-body
is shorter than in scorpions, while in the running and flying insects,
such as the Cicindelidæ, and in the swiftly flying flies and bees, there
is a tendency to a shortening of the body, especially of the abdomen.
The long body of the dragon-fly is an impediment to flight, but
compensated for by the action of the large wings.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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