Abstract
UNDER the aregoing title, Dr. R. E. Snodgrass, of the U.S. Bureau of Entomology and Plant Quarantine, contrilbutes a comprehensive memoir on the mouth-parts and associated structures as displayed in the main divisions of the Arachnida, including mites and ticks (Smithsonian Mis. Coll., 110, No. 10, pp. 93 + 29 figures; 1948). The Arachnida are believed to have been evolved from an ancestral stock that never acquired jaws for mastication—a feature that marks them off from all other living arthropods. Their most characteristic mouth appendages are the chelicerse, and the possession of these organs forced the ancestral arachnids to feed upon such liquids as they could extract from their prey. The latter are caught by the chelicerse or by means of the pedipalpi, should the latter appendages be chelate. The prey is held by the chelicerse while its body fluids are imbibed because, unlike insects, arachnids have no organs for mastication. Some arachnids practise external digestion, the solvent fluid probably being a product of the salivary glands in some cases and of the enteric diverticula in others. Students of zoology, and particularly those concerned with the Arthropoda, will find in this memoir an admirably clear and well-illustrated account of a subject that seldom meets with adequate treatment in text-books. Beginning with a general discussion of the structure of arachnid feeding organs, the author then goes on to deal with these parts in greater detail in the different orders. The Palpigradi come first for discussion and are followed by the Solpugida, and the memoir concludes with the very diverse assemblage that is included in the Acarina. At the end there is a useful bibliography of the leading papers in the field under consideration.
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Feeding Organs of Archnida. Nature 163, 522 (1949). https://doi.org/10.1038/163522a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/163522a0