The Wonderful Ways of Insects and Spiders [237 



THE INSECT'S DETECTING EQUIPMENT 



The antennae vary in shape and degree of complexity 

 according to species. The segments which make up the antennae 

 vary in number and in form as well. The grasshopper's antennae 

 may have more than twenty segments, whereas the common 

 housefly has only three stubby segments. An insect uses its an- 

 tennae to investigate its surroundings, and in many species these 

 feelers are related in some degree to the sense of smell. The 

 antennae are attached to the head in front of, or between, the 

 eyes. 



How Insects Eat and Breathe 



When we learn about the mouth parts of insects we realize 

 that there is no more dramatic example of the way nature varies 

 the forms of its creatures to suit special needs. 



Crushing and Sucking: The sharp strong jaws of the ground 

 beetle are excellently adapted to crush and eat caterpillars. The 

 big brown squash bug and others use a sucking tube to take 

 juice from plants; bedbugs have a similar mechanism for taking 

 blood from animals. As for butterflies and other insects that 

 extract nectar from flowers, they use a long tube, or tongue, which 

 at other times is tightly coiled beneath the head. 



Grasshoppers Bite Their Food: The grasshoppers and other biting 

 insects have an upper lip and an underlip, with two pairs of 

 jaws between them. If you look at a grasshopper through a 

 magnifying lens you will see that the upper pair of jaws (the 

 mandibles) are somewhat heavier than the lower pair (the 

 maxillae). 



On these lower jaws and on the lower lip there are feelers 

 or tasters called ''palpi." The taste buds comparable to our 

 own on the tips of the palpi enable the grasshopper to taste its 

 food before biting it. Though mandibles function somewhat 

 as human jaws do, they work from side to side instead of up 

 and down. 



