What are the 4 types of mouthparts insects have?
Insect mouthparts
- Labrum – a cover which may be loosely referred to as the upper lip.
- Mandibles – hard, powerful cutting jaws.
- Maxillae – ‘pincers’ which are less powerful than the mandibles.
- Labium – the lower cover, often referred to as the lower lip.
- Hypopharynx – a tongue-like structure in the floor of the mouth.
What insects have chewing mouthparts?
Major insect groups that have chewing mouthparts include the cockroaches and grasshoppers, most wasps, beetles, termites and caterpillars. Insects with piercing-sucking mouthparts include some flies (think mosquitoes), fleas, true bugs and their relatives.
What type of mouthparts have chew and lapping?
In the honey bee, the labium is elongated to form a tube and tongue, and these insects are classified as having both chewing and lapping mouthparts.
What does Haustellate mean?
Definition of haustellate : having a haustellum : suctorial.
What are insect mouthparts called?
mandibles
A chewing insect has a pair of mandibles, one on each side of the head. The mandibles are caudal to the labrum and anterior to the maxillae. 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.
Why do insects have different types of mouthparts?
As insects evolved to feed on a wider variety of food resources, their mouthparts adapted accordingly through natural selection. In some cases, an individual component of the mouthparts became specialized for a new function. In weevils, for example, the front of the head is elongated into a long, slender proboscis.
What are some examples of Haustellate mouthparts?
Examples of insects with haustellate mouthparts include true bugs, aphids (and their relatives), butterflies and moths, fleas, mosquitoes and many other types of flies. The following Flash animation illustrates the structure and function of various insects with mandibulate, modified mandibulate, and haustellate mouthparts.
What is an insect’s diet?
Knowing something about an insect’s diet leads us to even more information about it’s ecology and natural history. In all “primitive” insects, the mouthparts are adapted for grinding, chewing, pinching, or crushing bits of solid food. These are known as “ mandibulate ” mouthparts because they feature prominent chewing mandibles.
What is an example of a mandibulate insect?
Examples of insects with basic mandibulate mouthparts include grasshoppers, cockroaches, and ground beetles. Immature stages of many holometabolous insects (like beetle larvae and lepidopteran caterpillars also have mandibulate mouthparts.
What do caterpillars feed on?
Most of the caterpillars feed on leaves of plants, while others bore in plant stems and fruit and still others are leafminers. Key Characteristics: Lepidoptera usually have four well-developed wings covered with overlapping scales.