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After Miall and Denny, The Cockroach, Lovell Reeve & Co. |
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Fig. 10.—Dorsal Muscles, Heart and Pericardial Tendons of Cockroach. |
Muscular System.—The muscles in the Hexapoda are striated, as in Arthropods generally, the large fibres being associated in bundles which are attached from point to point of the cuticle, so as to move adjacent sclerites with respect to one another (see figs. 8, 10). For example, the contraction of the tergo-sternal muscles, connecting the dorsal with the ventral sclerites of the abdomen, lessens the capacity of the abdominal region, while the contraction of the powerful muscles arising from the thoracic walls, and inserted into the proximal ends of the thighs, flexes or extends the legs.
Circulatory System.—Insects afford an excellent illustration of the remarkable type of blood-system characterizing the Arthropoda. The dorsal vessel is an elongate tube, whose abdominal portion is usually chambered, forming a contractile heart (fig. 10). At the constrictions between the chambers are paired slits, through which the blood passes from the surrounding pericardial sinus. The dorsal vessel is prolonged anteriorly into an aorta, through which the blood is propelled into the great body-cavity or haemocoel. After bathing the various tissues and organs, the blood returns dorsalwards into the pericardial sinus through fine perforations of its floor, and so makes its way into the heart again. Some water-bugs, e.g. of the families Belostomatidae, Nepidae, Corixidae and Hydrometridae have a pulsating sac at each knee-joint to assist the flow of blood through the legs, while in dragon-flies and locusts (Acridiidae) there is a ventral pulsating diaphragm, which forms the roof of a sinus enclosing the nerve-cords.
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After Miall and Denny, The Cockroach, Lovell Reeve & Co. |
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Fig. 11.—Ventral Portion of Air-Tubes in Cockroach. |
Respiratory System.—As mentioned above, respiration by means of air-tubes (tracheae) is a most characteristic feature of the Hexapoda. An air-tube consists of an epithelium of large polygonal cells with a thin basement-membrane externally and a chitinous layer internally, the last-named being continuous with the outer cuticle. The chitinous layer is usually strengthened by thread-like thickenings which, in the region close to the outer opening of the tube, form a network enclosing polygonal areas, but which, through most of the tracheal system, are arranged spirally, the strengthening thread not forming a continuous spiral, but being interrupted after a few turns around the tube. The tracheal system in Hexapods is very complex, forming a series of longitudinal trunks with transverse anastomosing connexions (fig. 11), and extending by the finest sub-division and by repeated branching into all parts of the body. In insects of active flight the tubes swell out into numerous air-sacs, by which the breathing capacity is much increased.
Atmospheric air gains access to the air-tubes through paired spiracles or stigmata, which usually occur laterally on most of the body-segments. These spiracles have firm chitinous edges, and can be closed by valves moved by special muscles. When the spiracles are open and the body contracts, air is expired. The subsequent expansion of the body causes fresh air to enter the tracheal system, and if the spiracles be then closed and the body again contracted, this air is driven to the finest branches of the air-tubes, where a direct oxygenation of the tissues takes place. The physiology of respiration has been carefully studied by F. Plateau (1884). In aquatic insects various devices for obtaining or entangling air are found; these modifications are described in the special articles on the various orders of insects (Coleoptera, Hemiptera, &c.). Many insects have aquatic larvae, some of which take in atmospheric air at intervals, while others breathe dissolved air by means of tracheal gills. These modifications are mentioned below in the section on metamorphosis.
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From Miall and Denny, The Cockroach, Lovell Reeve & Co. | |
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Fig. 12.—Food Canal of Cockroach. | |
| s, | Salivary glands and reservoir. |
| c, | Crop (the gizzard below it). |
| coe, | Caecal tubes (below them the stomach). |
| k, | Kidney tubes. |
| i, | Intestine. |
| r, | Rectum. |
Digestive System.—A striking feature in the food-canal of the Hexapoda, as in other Arthropods, is the great extent of the “fore-gut” and “hind-gut,” lined with a chitinous cuticle, continuous with the exoskeleton. The fore-gut is composed of a tubular gullet, a large sac-like crop (fig. 12, c) and a proventriculus or “gizzard,” whose function is to strain the food-substances before they pass on into the tubular stomach, which has no chitinous lining. This organ, usually regarded as a “mid-gut,” gives off a number of secretory caecal tubes (fig. 12, coe). At its hinder end it is continuous with the hind-gut, which is usually differentiated into a tubular coiled intestine (fig. 12, i) and a swollen rectum (fig. 12, r). From the fore-end of the hind-gut arise the slender Malpighian tubes (fig. 12, k), which have a renal function.
On either side of the gullet are from one to ten pairs of salivary glands (fig. 12, s) whose ducts open into the mouth. Some of these glands may be modified for special purposes—as silk-producing glands in caterpillars or as poison-glands in blood-sucking flies and bugs. The food passing into the crop is there acted on by the saliva and also by an acid gastric juice which passes forwards from the stomach through the proventriculus. As the various portions of the food undergo digestion, they are allowed to pass through the proventriculus into the stomach, where the nutrient substances are absorbed.
Excretory System.—Nitrogenous waste-matter is removed from the body by the Malpighian tubes which open into the food-canal, usually where the hind-gut joins the stomach. These tubes vary in number from four to over a hundred in different orders of insects. The cells which line them and also the cavities of the tubes contain urates, which are excreted from the blood in the surrounding body-cavity. This cavity contains an irregular mass of whitish tissue, the fat-body, consisting of fat-cells which undergo degradation and become more or less filled with urates. When the worn-out cells are broken down, the urates are carried dissolved in the blood to the Malpighian tubes for excretion. The fat-body is therefore the seat of important metabolic processes in the hexapod body.
Reproductive System.—All the Hexapoda are of separate sexes. The ovaries (fig. 13) in the female are paired, each ovary consisting of a variable number of tubes (one in the bristle-tail Campodea and fifteen hundred in a queen termite) in which the eggs are developed. From each ovary an oviduct (fig. 13, od) leads, and in some of the more primitive insects (bristle-tails, earwigs, may-flies) the two oviducts open separately direct to the exterior. Usually they open into a median vagina, formed by an ectodermal inpushing and lined with chitin. The vagina usually opens in front of the eighth abdominal sternite. Behind it is situated a spermatheca (fig. 14, sp)
