A whip-like straw. Powerful, crushing blades. A pointed, piercing tube. There are nearly a million known insect species in the world, but most have one of just five common types of mouthparts. And that’s extremely useful to scientists because when they encounter an unfamiliar insect in the wild, they can learn a lot about it just by examining how it eats.
鞭子般的吸管 強勁的利刃 尖銳的管子 世界上已知的昆蟲有將近一百萬種 但牠們的口器大致上可分為五類 而口器對科學家來說非常實用 因為在野外碰到沒見過的昆蟲時 只要觀察牠們怎麼吃 就能知道很多訊息
Scientific classification, or taxonomy, is used to organize all living things into seven levels: kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species. The features of an insect’s mouthparts can help identify which order it belongs to, while also providing clues about how it evolved and what it feeds on.
科學分類,即分類學 用來將所有生物分為七個階層 界 門 綱 目 科 屬 種 昆蟲的口器可用來區分牠所屬的目 同時也提供線索
The chewing mouthpart is the most common. It’s also the most primitive— all other mouthparts are thought to have started out looking like this one before evolving into something different. It features a pair of jaws called mandibles with toothed inner edges that cut up and crush solid foods, like leaves or other insects. You can find this mouthpart on ants from the Hymenoptera order, grasshoppers and crickets of the Orthoptera order, dragonflies of the Odonata order, and beetles of the Coleoptera order.
讓我們知道牠如何演化、以何為食 咀嚼式口器最常見 也是最基本的一種 其他口器 在演化前都長得像這種 其特徵是有一對稱為大顎的下巴 內側鋸齒狀的邊緣 可以咬斷、壓碎較硬的食物 像是葉子或其他昆蟲 有這種口器的昆蟲 包含膜翅目的螞蟻 直翅目的蚱蜢和蟋蟀 蜻蛉目的蜻蜒 以及鞘翅目的甲蟲
The piercing-sucking mouthpart consists of a long, tube-like structure called a beak. This beak can pierce plant or animal tissue to suck up liquids like sap or blood. It can also secrete saliva with digestive enzymes that liquefy food for easier sucking. Insects in the Hemiptera order have piercing-sucking mouthparts and include bed bugs, cicadas, aphids, and leafhoppers.
刺吸式口器有一條長管狀的構造 稱為喙 喙可以刺穿動植物的組織 用來吸食液體,像是樹液或血液 喙也能分泌唾液 其中的消化酶可以液化食物 讓吸食更容易 半翅目的昆蟲會有刺吸式口器 像是臭蟲 蟬 蚜蟲 和葉蟬
The siphoning mouthpart, a friendlier version of the piercing and sucking beak, also consists of a long, tube-like structure called a proboscis that works like a straw to suck up nectar from flowers. Insects of the Lepidoptera order— butterflies and moths— keep their proboscises rolled up tightly beneath their heads when they’re not feeding and unfurl them when they come across some sweet nectar.
虹吸式口器 是溫和版的刺吸式喙 虹吸式口器也有一條長管狀的構造 稱為吻腔 就像吸管一樣吸取花蜜 鱗翅目的昆蟲 像是蝴蝶和蛾 在沒有進食的時候 會將吻腔緊緊捲起 放在頭部下方 碰到甜美的花蜜時就會張開
With the sponging mouthpart, there’s yet another tube, this time ending in two spongy lobes that contain many finer tubes called pseudotracheae. The pseudotracheae secrete enzyme-filled saliva and soak up fluids and dissolved foods by capillary action. House flies, fruit flies, and the other non-biting members of the Diptera order are the only insects that use this technique. But, there’s a catch. Biting flies within Diptera, like mosquitoes, horse flies, and deer flies, have a piercing-sucking mouthpart instead of the sponging mouthpart.
舐吮式口器也有另一種管子 尾端有兩片海棉 內部有很多微小的管子,稱為假氣管 假氣管會分泌充滿酶的唾液 吸取液體 並透過毛細管作用分解食物 家蠅 果蠅 和雙翅目中不會叮咬的成員 是唯一會用這種技巧的昆蟲 但這裡有個陷阱 雙翅目中會叮咬的成員 像是蚊子 馬蠅 鹿蠅
And finally, the chewing-lapping mouthpart is a combination of mandibles and a proboscis with a tongue-like structure at its tip for lapping up nectar. On this type of mouthpart, the mandibles themselves are not actually used for eating. For bees and wasps, members of the Hymenoptera order, they serve instead as tools for pollen-collecting and wax-molding.
都有刺吸式口器,而非舐吮式口器 最後,咀吸式口器結合了大顎和吻腔 還有一個像舌頭的組織在頂端 用來舔食花蜜 這種口器的大顎 不是拿來吃東西用的 對膜翅目的蜜蜂和土蜂等昆蟲來說
Of course, in nature, there are always exceptions to the rules. The juvenile stages of some insects, for example, have completely different kinds of mouths than their adult versions, like caterpillars, which use chewing mouthparts to devour leaves before metamorphosing into butterflies and moths with siphoning mouthparts.
大顎的作用比較像是 採集花粉和塑蠟的工具 當然在大自然中 仍有許多不符這些規則的例外 例如某些昆蟲在幼蟲階段的口器 和成蟲後的口器完全不同種類 像是毛毛蟲用咀嚼式口器大啖樹葉 在成為蝴蝶或蛾之後
Still, mouthpart identification can, for the most part, help scientists—and you —categorize insects. So why not break out a magnifying lens and learn a little more about who’s nibbling your vegetable garden, biting your arm, or just flying by your ear.
就轉變為虹吸式口器 然而在大多數的情況下 辨視口器可以幫助科學家和你 將昆蟲分類 何不現在就拿起你的放大鏡 來看看是誰在你的菜園偷吃 叮你的手臂