Premium
ON THE APPEARANCE OF GAS IN THE TRACHEAE OF INSECTS
Author(s) -
KEILIN D.
Publication year - 1924
Publication title -
biological reviews
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 4.993
H-Index - 165
eISSN - 1469-185X
pISSN - 1464-7931
DOI - 10.1111/j.1469-185x.1924.tb00534.x
Subject(s) - tissue fluid , moulting , interstitial fluid , capillary action , anatomy , absorption (acoustics) , biology , chemistry , botany , materials science , endocrinology , physics , thermodynamics , larva , composite material
Summary. (1) The aquatic apneustic insects, on hatching from eggs or after each moult, have their tracheal system filled with fluid. (2) A short time after hatching, or moult, the gas suddenly appears, usually in the large tracheal trunks, and thence rapidly spreads into the capillaries. (3) There is no evidence of the secretory origin of this gas, the gas‐secreting cells having never been revealed in insects. (4) The secretory theory of gas does not explain the fate of the disappearing tracheal fluid. Frankenberg's, Pause's and Tillyard's suppositions are discussed and rejected. (5) The following new explanation of the appearance of the gas in the tracheae is proposed:—The tracheal fluid is absorbed by the cells of various tissues from the intracellular capillary tracheoles; the column of the fluid is thus ruptured, the space left by the retiring fluid being immediately filled by gases diffusing from the surrounding media (blood). This supposition explains both the elimination of the tracheal fluid and the appearance of the gas as being due to the same cause—absorption of the tracheal fluid by the tissue cells.