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Typically the mandibles are the largest and most robust mouthparts of a chewing insect, and it uses them to masticate (cut, tear, crush, chew) food items. Two sets of muscles move the mandibles in the coronal plane of the mouth: abductor muscles move insects' mandibles apart ; adductor muscles bring them together . They do this mainly in ...
The earliest insects had chewing mouthparts. Specialisation includes mouthparts modified for siphoning, piercing, sucking and sponging. These modifications have evolved a number of times. For example, mosquitoes and aphids both pierce and suck; however, female mosquitoes feed on animal blood whereas aphids feed on plant fluids. This section ...
Insect blood or haemolymph's main function is that of transport and it bathes the insect's body organs. Making up usually less than 25% of an insect's body weight, it transports hormones, nutrients and wastes and has a role in, osmoregulation, temperature control, immunity, storage (water, carbohydrates and fats) and skeletal function. It also ...
Insect mandibles are a pair of appendages near the insect's mouth, and the most anterior of the three pairs of oral appendages (the labrum is more anterior, but is a single fused structure). Their function is typically to grasp, crush, or cut the insect's food, or to defend against predators or rivals.
The labrum is a flap-like structure that lies immediately in front of the mouth in almost all extant Euarthropoda. The most conspicuous exceptions are the Pycnogonida, which are probably chelicerates. In entomology, the labrum amounts to the "upper lip" of an insect mouth, the corresponding "lower lip" being the labium.
Head of a tadpole shrimp, with the mandibles labeled 3. Crustaceans have a pair of mandibles that typically consist of an enlarged basal segment (coxa) and a palp (sensory feeler) consisting of all other segments. In some groups, such as the Branchiopoda, the palp is reduced or absent. Crustacean mandibles may be equipped with special teeth ...
The delicate anatomy of the two mosquitoes was beautifully preserved in the fossils. Both displayed exceptionally sharp and triangle-shaped jaw anatomy and an elongated structure with tooth-like ...
It functions to cut and manipulate food in the mouth. [6] The galea is a broad, scoop-like, lobe structure, which assists the maxillary palps in sampling items before ingestion. The maxillary palp is serially homologous to the walking leg while the cardo and stipes are regarded by most to be serially homologous to the first leg segment, the ...