Why is this important? Knowing the type of mouthparts is important to entomologists because mouth design provides a clue to the ancestry or taxonomy of the insect. We use mouthparts as a clue, for example, to know which basic insect group Order an insect belongs to. 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.
Another time it is useful to know something about insect mouthparts is when trying to diagnose plant damage. If an insect is feeding on a plant, different mouthparts are going to cause different damage symptoms. For example, if you catch an insect on your chewed-up tomato plant, and it has piercing-sucking mouthparts, you can eliminate that insect as a culprit. Interestingly, scientists who study the structures of insect mouthparts long ago determined that the same parts are present in both sets of mouthparts.
The mandibles are transverse jaws for cutting and grinding. Behind the mandibles there is the maxillae. The maxillae also function as a set of jaws for food manipulation. The labium functions as a lower lip.
Maxillary palpus and labial palpus are used for touching, tasting, and sensing temperature. More about Insects. Insects Biology. Grasshopper's Face. Dragonfly's Eyes. Butterfly's Life. Dragonfly's Life. Katydid's Life. Insects Behaviour. Insects as Predator. Caterpillar Escape. Mole Cricket's Song. Aphid's Nature Enemies. Feigning Death.
Leaf Beetle's Nature Enemies. Insects Migration. Attended By Ants. Warning Signs. Black Wasps Mimicry. Jumping Spider Mimicry. Bird-dropping Mimicry. The posterior angle is formed by the edges of the posterior lobe. When the pronotum is viewed from the side, the rounded lobe of the pleural region is the lateral lobe. Legs arise at the boundary between the pleural and sternal regions. The front legs are the prothoracic legs , the middle pair of legs are the mesothoracic legs , and the enlarged, jumping saltatorial hindlegs are the metathoracic legs.
Wings arise at the boundary between the notal and pleural regions. The thickened or leathery front wings tegmina are from the mesothorax while the fan-like hindwings are from the metathorax. Insect legs possess jointed segments. Moving outward distad from the body these segments are: coxa , trochanter , femur , tibia , and tarsus. The front tibia of members within the suborder Ensifera have a blister-like hearing organ, the tympanum. The hind femur is the enlarged jumping spring of the hindlegs.
The hind tibia has two rows of spines and as many as six enlarged movable spurs at its apex. These enlarged spurs are known as calcaria. Note that a spur is inserted into a socket and is movable while a spine lacks a socket and is fixed. The tarsus is divided into a number of segments called tarsomeres. At the end of the tarsus are two claws tarsal claws and a pad between these claws, not always present, is the arolium. When there are pads below the tarsal claws other insects these are called pulvilli.
Pads present under each tarsomere are called euplantae. The hind femur has surfaces and structural features which are important in identification. The sharp ridge along the top of the femur is the upper carina and that along the bottom is the lower carina. The femur has an outer face and an inner face.
The curving ridge on the outer face just below the upper carina is the upper carnula. The curving ridge just above the lower carina is the lower carnula. The upper and lower carnulae are separated by an area which shows a herring bone pattern of faint groves or chevrons.
On the inner face of the hind femur there is usually a straight inner carnula which in the slant-faced grasshoppers, runs below a row of minute stridulatory pegs. Orthoptera usually have two pairs of wings ; the narrow forewings covering the fan-like hindwings.
The forewings are often leathery and so are known as tegmina. When the wings are spread, the leading edge of the forewing is the costal margin and the trailing edge is the inner margin. Often the wing area immediately behind the costal margin costal area is enlarged and is crossed by a series of parallel veins which run obliquely slant-wise to the margin.
This gives the area the appearance of a series of windows or fenestrae. In many grasshoppers, a raised longitudinal vein can be seen posteriad of the costal area and running parallel to the costal margin. This is the intercalary vein. Bandwing grasshoppers produce sound by rubbing the hind femur across this vein.
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