Morphology of abdominal evaporatoria in larvae of some Lygaeoidea (Insecta: Hemiptera: Heteroptera): function and bearing on classification

Abstract

The dorsal abdominal scent glands of nymphs in Lygaeoidea are diverse. Some related characters, such as number and distribution of dorsal abdominal scent gland openings (DSOs), and shapes of dark plates surrounding DSOs have been commonly used in taxonomic and/or phylogenetic studies of Lygaeoidea. However, comparative studies of the cuticular fine structures surrounding the DSOs in lygaeoid (and other Heteroptera) nymphs are few. We examined the cuticular fine structures surrounding DSOs of fifth‐instar nymphs of 25 species in seven families of Lygaeoidea with scanning electron microscopy. The results showed that the structures surrounding DSOs, such as distribution pattern of cell network, type of network, type of non‐latticed area, pattern of channels for glandular secretion, are complicated and diverse at the family level, indicating that they are valuable in taxonomic and phylogenetic analyses.

Keywords:

• cuticular structures
• dorsal abdominal scent gland opening
• Lygaeoidea
• nymphs

Acknowledgements

We are very grateful to Le‐Yi Zheng, Thomas J. Henry, Dominique‐Pluot Sigwalt, Pavel Štys, the subject editor and anonymous reviewers for their very helpful comments and reviewing of the manuscript. We thank Jane E. O'Donnell and Thomas J. Henry for sending literature to the first author. We express thanks to Gui‐ling Pan for her help in producing the SEM micrographs. The project was supported by the National Natural Sciences Foundation of China (Nos. 30570192, 30725005) and the National Cultivation Project of Special Subjects in Basic Science (No. J0630963) of the National Natural Sciences Foundation of China.