Insect mouthparts

Insects exhibit a range of mouthparts, adapted to particular modes of feeding. The earliest insects had chewing mouthparts. Specialization has mostly been for piercing and sucking, although a range of specializations exist, as these modes of feeding have evolved a number of times (for example, mosquitoes (which are flies) and aphids (which are true bugs) both pierce and suck, however female mosquitoes feed on animal blood whereas aphids feed on plant fluids). In this page, the individual mouthparts are introduced for chewing insects. Specializations are generally described thereafter.

Like most external features of arthropods, the mouthparts of hexapoda are highly derived. Insect mouthparts show a multitude of different functional mechanisms across the wide diversity of species considered insects. Certainly it is common for significant homology to be conserved, with matching structures formed from matching primordia, and having the same evolutionary origin. On the other hand, even structures that physically are almost identical, and share almost identical functionality as well, may not be homologous; their analogous functions and appearance might be the product of convergent evolution.

Examples of chewing insects include dragonflies, grasshoppers and beetles. Some insects do not have chewing mouthparts as adults but do chew solid food when they feed while they still are larvae. The moths and butterflies are major examples of such adaptations.

A chewing insect has a pair of mandibles, one on each side of the head. The mandibles are caudal to the labrum and anterior to the maxillae. Typically the mandibles are the largest and most robust mouthparts of a chewing insect, and it uses them to masticate (cut, tear, crush, chew) food items. Two sets of muscles move the mandibles in the coronal plane: abductor muscles move insects' mandibles apart (laterally); adductor muscles bring them together (medially). This they do mainly in opening and closing their jaws in feeding, but also in using the mandibles as tools, or possibly in fighting; note however, that this refers to the coronal plane of the mouth, not necessarily of the insect's body, because insects' heads differ greatly in their orientation.

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