cuticular structures—the scales (fig. 7)—that may be regarded as modified arthropodan “hairs.” Such scales are not peculiar to the Lepidoptera—they are found also on many of the Aptera, on the Psocidae, a family of Corrodentia, on some Coleoptera (beetles) and on the gnats (Culicidae), a family of Diptera. The most distinctive structural features of the Lepidoptera are to be found in the jaws. The mandibles are mere vestiges or entirely absent; the second maxillae are usually reduced to a narrow transverse mentum which bears the scale-covered labial palps, between which project the elongate first maxillae, grooved on their inner faces, so as to form when apposed a tubular proboscis adapted for sucking liquid food.
All Lepidoptera are hatched as the eruciform soft-bodied type of larva (fig. 1, a) known as the caterpillar, with biting mandibles, three pairs of thoracic legs and with a variable number (usually five pairs) of abdominal prolegs, which carry complete or incomplete circles of hooklets. The pupa in a single family only is free (i.e. with the appendages free from the body), and mandibulate. In the vast majority of the order it is more or less obtect (i.e. with the appendages fixed to the cuticle of the body) and without mandibles (fig. 1, c).
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| From Edwards, Riley and Howard’s Insect Life, vol. 7 (U.S. Dept. Agr.). |
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Fig. 2.—a, Feeler of Saturniid Moth (Telea polyphemus). b, c, Tips of branches, highly magnified. |
_-_mandible_and_1st_maxilla.jpg)
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After A. Walter (Jen. Zeits. f. Naturw. vol. 18). | |||
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Fig. 3.—A, Mandible, and B, 1st maxilla of Micropteryx (Eriocephala). Magnified. | |||
| a, | Palp. | d, | Stipes. |
| b, | Galea. | e, | Cardo of maxilla. |
| c, | Lacinia. | ||
Structure.—The head in the Lepidoptera is sub-globular in shape with the compound eyes exceedingly well developed, and with a pair of ocelli or “simple eyes” often present on the vertex. It is connected to the thorax by a relatively broad and membranous “neck.” The feelers are many-jointed, often they are complex, the segments bearing processes arranged in a comb-like manner and furnished with numerous sensory hairs (fig. 2). The complexity of the feelers is carried to its highest development in certain male moths that have a wonderful power of discovering their females by smell or some analogous sense. Often the feelers are excessively complex in male moths whose maxillae are so reduced that they take no food in the imaginal state. The nature of the jaws has already been briefly described. Functional mandibles of peculiar form (fig. 3, A) are present in the remarkable small moths of the genus Micropteryx (or Eriocephala), and there are vestiges of these jaws in other moths of low type, but the minute structures in the higher Lepidoptera that were formerly described as mandibles are now believed to belong to the labrum, the true mandibles being perhaps represented by rounded prominences, not articulated with the head-capsule. Throughout the order, as a whole, the jaws are adapted for sucking liquid food, and the suctorial proboscis (often erroneously called a “tongue”) is formed as was shown by J. C. Savigny in 1816 by two elongated and flexible outgrowths of the first maxillae, usually regarded as representing the outer lobes or galeae (fig. 4, A, B, g). These structures are grooved along their inner faces and by means of a series of interlocking hair-like bristles can be joined together so as to form a tubular sucker (fig. 4, C). At their extremities they are beset with club-like sense-organs, whose apparent function is that of taste. The proboscis when in use is stretched out in front of the head and inserted into the corolla of a flower or elsewhere, for the absorption of liquid nourishment. When at rest, the proboscis is rolled up into a close spiral beneath the head and between the labial palps (fig. 4, A, p). Only in the genus Micropteryx mentioned above is the lacinia of the maxilla (as A. Walter has shown) developed (fig. 3, B, c). The maxillary palp is usually a mere vestige (fig. 4, B, p) though it is conspicuous in a few families of small moths. A considerable number of Lepidoptera take no food in the imaginal state; in these the maxillae are reduced or altogether atrophied. The second maxillae are intimately fused together to form the labium, which consists only of a reduced mentum, bearing sometimes vestigial lobes and always a pair of palps. These have two or three segments and are clothed with scales. The form and direction of the terminal segment of the labial palp afford valuable characters in classification.
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Fig. 4.—Arrangement of the jaws in a typical Moth. Somewhat diagrammatic and in part after E. Burgess and V. L. Kellogg (Amer. Nat. xiv. xxix.). | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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In the thorax of the Lepidoptera the foremost segment or prothorax is very small, and not movable on the mesothorax. In many families it carries a pair of small erectile plates—the patagia—which have been regarded as serially homologous with the wings. The mesothorax is extensive; its scutum forming most of the dorsal thoracic area and small plates—tegulae—are often present at the base of the forewings, as in Hymenoptera. The tegulae which are beset with long hair-like scales are often conspicuous. The metathorax is smaller than the mesothorax. The legs are of the typical hexapodan form with five-segmented feet; the shins often bear terminal and median spurs articulated at their bases and the entire limbs are clothed with scales.
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| After A. S. Packard, Mem. Nat. Acad. Sci. vol. vii. |
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Fig. 5.—Wing-neuration of a Notodont Moth. 2, Sub-costal; 3, radial; 4, median; 5, cubital; 7, 8, anal nervures. a, Discoidal areolet or “cell”; f, frenulum. Note that the forewing has five branches (1-5) of the radial nervure, the hindwing one only. The first anal nervure (No. 6) is absent. |
The wings of the Lepidoptera may be said to dominate the structure of the insect; only exceptionally, in certain female moths, are they vestigial or absent (fig. 17). The forewing, with its prominent apex, is longer than the hindwing, and the neuration in both (see figs. 5 and 6) is for the most part longitudinal, only a few transverse nervures, which are, in fact, branches of the median trunk, marking off a discoidal areolet or “cell” (fig. 5, a). The five branches of the radial nervure (figs. 5, 6, 3) (see Hexapoda) are usually present in the forewing, but the hindwing, in most families, has only a single radial nervure; its anal area is, however, often more strongly developed than that of the forewing. The two wings of a side are usually kept together during flight by a few stout bristles—the frenulum—(fig. 5, f) projecting from the base of the costa of the hindwing and fitting beneath a membranous fold or a few thickened scales—the retinaculum—on the under surface of the forewing. In butterflies there is no frenulum, but a costal outgrowth of the
