Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-dh8gc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T08:46:47.844Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The feeding apparatus of thrips

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 July 2009

L. A. Mound
Affiliation:
British Museum (Natural History), Cromwell Road, London, S.W.7

Extract

Standard text-books on entomology (Imms, 1957; Ross, 1956) state that the insects of the order Thysanoptera feed by macerating leaf tissue with pointed stylets, and then suck the juices thus released by applying their mouth cone to the leaf surface.The drawings accompanying these statements indicate that the maxillary stylets and the single mandible are all simple acute needle-like structures. However, sections of the mouth cone including the stylets show that the mandible is a closed tubular structure, and that the maxillary stylets are grooved, i.e., C-shaped in section (Reyne,1927; Mickoleit, 1963). Moreover, Grasse (1951) states that although the maxillary stylets do not show the mutual adaptations found in the Hemiptera they do form a tube when fitted together, and Grinfel'd (1959) suggests that thrips may suck food through the tube formed by the stylets in addition to applying the mouth cone directly onto the food.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1971

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Grasse, P.P. (1951). Traite de Zoologie, X (II) 976–1948 pp. Paris, Masson.Google Scholar
Grinfel'd, E. K., (1959). Feeding of thrips on the pollen of flowers and the origin of asymmetry in their mouthparts.—Ent. Rev., Wash. 38, 715720Google Scholar
Imms, A. D. (1957). A general textbook of entomology.—9th edn, 886 pp. London, Methuen.Google Scholar
Kloft, W.' Ehrhardt, P. (1959). Zur Frage der Speichelinjektion beim Saugakt von Thrips tabaci Lind. (Thysanoptera, Terebrantia).—Naturwissenschaften 46, 586587.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mickoleit, E. (1963). Untersuchungen zur Kopfmorphologie der Thysanopteren.—Zool. Jb., Abt. Anat. 81, 101150.Google Scholar
Mound, L. A. (1970). Convoluted maxillary stylets and the systematics of some Phlaeothripine Thysanoptera from Casuarina trees in Australia.—Aust. J. Zool. 18, 439463.Google Scholar
Reyne, A. (1927). Untersuchungen iiber die Mundteile der Thysanopteren.—Zool. Jb., Abt. Anat. 49, 391500.Google Scholar
Ross, H. H. (1956). A textbook of entomology.2nd edn, 519 pp. New York, Wiley.Google Scholar
Sakimura, K. (1962). The present status of thrips-borne viruses. In Maramorosch, K., Biological transmission of disease agents.— 192 pp. New York, Academic Press.Google Scholar
Stannard, L. J. (1957). The phylogeny and classification of the North American genera of the suborder Tubulifera (Thysanoptera).—Illinois biol. Monogr. no. 25, 200 pp.Google Scholar