Elementary entomology elementaryentomo00sand Year: [c1912] FIG. 49. Sensory cells in antennae of aphides. (Greatly magnified) Smell. Most insects depend upon their sense of smell to find their food and to discover the opposite sex. Thus beetles and flies are drawn to carrion and to decaying vegetation, and in almost all cases it seems probable that the food plant of an insect is distinguished by smell rather than by sight. A confined female Cecropia moth will often draw numerous males from a considerable distance. Experiments have shown that the antennae are the chief organs of smell, though


Elementary entomology elementaryentomo00sand Year: [c1912] FIG. 49. Sensory cells in antennae of aphides. (Greatly magnified) Smell. Most insects depend upon their sense of smell to find their food and to discover the opposite sex. Thus beetles and flies are drawn to carrion and to decaying vegetation, and in almost all cases it seems probable that the food plant of an insect is distinguished by smell rather than by sight. A confined female Cecropia moth will often draw numerous males from a considerable distance. Experiments have shown that the antennae are the chief organs of smell, though the maxillary palpi and cerci detect certain odors and enable certain insects to smell when the antennas are removed. The olfactory function of the antennae can be very easily shown by taking an insect which is definitely attracted to some substance by smell and removing the antennae or covering them with shellac, when it will be found wholly indifferent to what was previously so attractive. Vile-smelling substances FIG'SO Antenna of la- which are Supposed to mellicorn beetle repel insects are USUally Showing smelling pits on the of no vail IP not afferf expanded terminal segments. e> (After Jordan and Kellogg) ing the insect as they do man. Some attempts have been made to utilize the sense of smell in luring insects to destruc- tion, but as yet with no very marked success, though there is promise of possible control of some pests in this way. Hearing. There is no evidence that hearing is generally developed in insects, but in many groups we naturally infer its presence from the fact that characteristic noises are produced, as the ' singing' of the cicada and katydid. These noises are produced in various


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