About Lesson
Body Segmentation of Insect
- Insects have segmented bodies with certain segments fusing to form three usually well-defined regions: head, thorax, and abdomen.
- The grouping of segments into functional regions is known as tagmosis.
- The head consists of 6 segments. The head comprises mouthparts, compound eyes, simple eyes (ocelli), and a pair of antennae.
- Thorax consists of 3 segments i.e. prothorax, mesothorax, and metathorax, Meso, and metathorax are together known as pneumothorax.
- All three thoracic segments possess a pair of legs and meso and meta-thorax each possess one pair of wings.
- The abdomen has 7-11 segments with genital appendages. The 8 and 9 segments in female and 8 segments in male insects are modified to bear genital appendices.
- There are hard, color,d, and complex plates in each segment of the insect body which is called sclerites.
- The sclerites present on the dorsal side are called tergites, the Lateral side is called pleurites and the Ventral side is called sternites.
- Segments except in the head (6 segments fused to form a capsule) joined together with a flexible soft and white membrane called inter-segmental membrane.