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
This mode of formation of the head may be observed still more easily
in Rhodites, Hemiteles, and Microgaster, from the fact that their
oculo-cephalic buds are much more precocious, and that the eyes are
charged with pigment at a period when the insect still preserves its
larval form.
“... I believe that this mode of formation of the head occurs in all
Hymenoptera with apodous larvæ, in this sense; that a more or less
considerable part of the first thoracic segment is always soldered
to the head of the larva to constitute the head of the perfect
insect. The arrangement of the nervous system is naturally in accord
with this peculiarity of development, and the cephalic ganglia of
the larva to which the ocular blastems later adapt themselves, are
found not in the head, but in the succeeding segment (Figs. 39, 40,
41).
“Relying on these facts, I maintain that the encroachment of the
head on the prothorax is a consequence of the preponderance in size
of the brain, and indicates the superiority of the Hymenoptera over
other insects....”
That the pronotum is derived from the larval prothoracic segment is
proved by the fact that the first pair of stigmata becomes what
authors call the “prothoracic” stigmata of the perfect insect. But
Bugnion thinks that the projection which carries it, and which he
calls the shoulder (Figs. 41 and 42), belongs to the mesonotum.
_b._ Appendages of the head
=The antennæ.=—These are organs of tactile sense, but also bear
olfactory, and in some cases auditory organs; they are usually inserted
between or in front of the eyes, and moved by two small muscles at the
base, within the head. In the more generalized insects the antennæ are
simple, many-jointed appendages, the joints being equal in size and
shape. The antennæ articulate with the head by a ball and socket joint,
the part on which it moves being called the _torulus_ (Fig. 32, _r_). In
the more specialized forms it is divided into the _scape_, the
_pedicel_, and a _flagellum_ (or _clavola_); but usually, as in ants,
wasps, and bees, there are two parts, the basal three-jointed one being
the scape, and the distal one, the usually long filiform flagellum. The
antennæ, especially the flagellum, vary greatly in form in insects of
different families and orders, this variation being the result of
adaptation to their peculiar surroundings and habits. The number of
antennal joints may be one (Articerus, a clavigerid beetle), or two in
Paussus and in _Adranes cœcus_ (Fig. 43^{12}), where they are short and
club-shaped; in flies (Muscidæ, etc.), they are very short and with few
joints, and when at rest lying in a cavity adapted for their reception.
In the lamellicorn beetles the flagellum is divided into several leaves,
and this condition may be approached in the serrate or flabellicorn
antennæ of other beetles. In Lepidoptera, and in certain saw-flies and
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