Date of Award:

5-1-1966

Document Type:

Dissertation

Degree Name:

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department:

Biology

Department name when degree awarded

Entomology

Committee Chair(s)

B. Austin Haws

Committee

B. Austin Haws

Committee

Datus M. Hammond

Committee

Philip Torchio

Committee

Richard Shaw

Abstract

Fixed heads of workers, drones and queens of Apis mellifera Linnaeus were dissected under distilled water for the study of two tissues: the musculature and the nerve mass. Musculature: The movable and fixed points of muscle attachment were utilized in establishing a nomenclature for muscles to replace those in current usage which depend on various combination of topography, function, and numerical sequence. The present system proved to be consistent and useful for demonstrating the criteria of homology among muscles. Names were devised in classical Greek and Latin for international usage. For establishing muscle homology, every cephalic muscle of the three casts was compared with its homolog in other Hymenoptera and Neuroptera. The labial and epipharyngeal muscles are degenerate and the antennal muscles maintain primitive features. The mandibular complex consists of two well developed muscles and a third degenerate one which probably serves as a stretch organ. The maxillary muscles maintain the same points of attachment as in primitive insects, although the musculus tentorio-cardinalis has shifted its point of movable attachment to the stipes in the female bees to meet a change in function. The maxillary palpal muscles have disappeared as a result of the reduction of the palpus itself. Many of the labril muscles have shifted one or both points of attachment as a result of the specialization of the labrium. The musculus postoccipiti-prementualis even has different points of fixed attachment among the different castes.

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