The Cambridge natural history, Vol. 05 (of 10)Sedgwick, Adam
Science
The Cambridge natural history, Vol. 05 (of 10)
Sedgwick, Adam
Animals
Various terms are used to express the differences that exist in the
metamorphoses of Insects, and as these terms refer chiefly to the changes
in the outer form, we will here mention them. As already stated, the locust
is, in our own language, said to have an incomplete metamorphosis, the
butterfly a complete one. The term Holometabola has been proposed for
Insects with complete metamorphosis, while the appellations Ametabola,
Hemimetabola, Heterometabola, and Paurometabola have been invented for the
various forms of incomplete, or rather less complex, metamorphosis. Some
writers use the term Ametabola for Insects that are supposed to exhibit no
change of external form after quitting the egg, the contrasted series of
all other Insects being then called Metabola. Westwood and others use the
word Homomorpha for Insects in which the condition on hatching more or less
resembles that attained at the close of the development, and Heteromorpha
for those in which the form on emergence from the egg differs much from
what it ultimately becomes.
HYPERMETAMORPHOSIS.
There are certain unusual changes to which the term hypermetamorphosis has
been applied; these we can here only briefly allude to.
{159}Insects that have complete metamorphoses, and are not supplied with
food by their parents or guardians, are provided during their larval life
with special modifications of extremely various kinds to fit them for the
period of life during which they are obtaining food and growing. Thus
caterpillars possess numerous adaptations to fit them for the period during
which they live on leaves, while maggots have modifications enabling them
to live amongst decomposing flesh. Some larvae are greatly modified in this
adaptive way, and when the adaptations change greatly during the life of
the larva, hypermetamorphosis is said to exist. As an instance we may
mention some beetle larvae that are born with legs by whose aid they can
cling to a bee, and so get carried to its nest, where they will in future
live on the stores of food the bee provides for its own young. In order
that they may be accommodated to their totally different second
circumstances, they change their first form, losing their legs, and
becoming almost bladder-like creatures, fitted for floating on the honey
without being injured by it. Such an occurrence has been described by
Fabre[82] in the case of _Sitaris humeralis_, and his figures have been
reproduced in Sir John Lubbock's book on the metamorphoses of Insects,[83]
as well as in other works, yet they are of so much interest that we give
them again, especially as the subject is still only in its infancy; we at
present see no sufficient reason for the later of these larval states.
Little is, we believe, known as to the internal anatomy of the various
instars in these curious cases.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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