INSECTS, ARACHNIDS AND REPTILES 



decreased at high temperatures ; it will be noted later that Goodwin 

 could find no effect of variation of rearing temperature on the carotene 

 accumulation in the locusts. 



Hymenoptera 



Only two short reports exist concerning the tissue carotenoids of the 

 hymenoptera. Von Euler, Hellstrom, and Klussmann ' ' state that the 

 eggs of certain ants contain carotene and Manunta^^ observed that 

 the parasitic Microgaster congleromatus contains the same carotenoids 

 as does its host P. brassicae, viz., a-carotene and taraxanthin (but see 

 p. 215). 



Honey, beeswax, * '^^ * * and bee glue (propolis)** all contain caro- 

 tenoids, presumably directly derived from pollen {see p. 52). Scheutte 

 and Bott's^^ early work suggested that only p-carotene was present 

 in honey but Tischer** has found in addition lutein (xanthophyll) 

 esters ; in any case the constituent pigments very probably vary with 

 the source of the pollen. It is interesting to note that amber honey is 

 not acceptable to the American market, which likes its honey colourless 

 and thus ignores the potential vitamin A activity in the coloured 

 product. 



Orthoptera 



In 1907 Podiapolsky 2 • stated that Locusta (Tettigonia) viridissima 

 contained xanthophylls but it was not until 1933 that Przibram and 

 Lederer ^ ' undertook the first exhaustive investigation into a member of 

 this family, although Pannier and Verrier ^ s in 1929 found large amounts 

 of carotenoids in some red Phyllium siccifolium produced by raising 

 them on the oil of green oak leaves. 



Przibram and Lederer ^ ' considered that the green pigmentation of 

 the walking-stick insect, Dixippus morosus, was produced by the com- 

 bination of three components ; a mixture of a- and p-carotene, 

 " chlorophyll," and a blue water-soluble pigment. It seems, at the 

 present stage of knowledge, very doubtful if " chlorophyll " actually 

 exists in the integument of any insect, and the recent work of Junge ^ ■ 

 has shown that the pigment of D. morosus is due to a combination of the 

 carotene as a protein complex and a blue (** bile ") pigment, probably 

 mesobiliverdin ; the resulting green complex, called by Junge " insect- 

 overdin," is probably widely distributed in insects. * i- ^ » The pigment 

 in the red coloured femoral swellings of D. morosus is almost entirely 

 a-carotene.*' Przibram and Lederer*' also found carotenes but no 

 xanthophylls at every stage of metamorphosis in Phyllium pulchrifolium. 

 They further stated that the green Mantis Sphodromantis bioculata 



217 



