Читать книгу The Structure and Life-history of the Cockroach (Periplaneta orientalis) - L. C. Miall - Страница 30

Table of Contents

Fig. 13.—Front of Head. × 10.

The head of the Cockroach, as seen from the front, is pear-shaped, having a semi-circular outline above, and narrowing downwards. A side-view shows that the front and back are flattish, while the top and sides are regularly rounded. In the living animal the face is usually inclined downwards, but it can be tilted till the lower end projects considerably forward. The mouth, surrounded by gnathites or jaws, opens below. On the hinder surface is the occipital foramen, by which the head communicates with the thorax. A rather long neck allows the head to be retracted beneath the pronotum (first dorsal shield of the thorax) or protruded beyond it.

On the front of the head we observe the clypeus, which occupies a large central tract, extending almost completely across the widest part of the face. It is divided above by a sharply bent suture from the two epicranial plates, which form the top of the head as well as a great part of its back and sides. The labrum hangs like a flap from its lower edge. A little above the articulation of the labrum the width of the clypeus is suddenly reduced, as if a squarish piece had been cut out of each lower corner. In the re-entrant angle so formed, the ginglymus, or anterior articulation of the mandible, is situated.

The labrum is narrower than the clypeus, and of squarish shape, the lower angles being rounded. It hangs downwards, with a slight inclination backwards towards the mouth, whose front wall it forms. On each side, about halfway between the lateral margin and the middle line, the posterior surface of the labrum is strengthened by a vertical chitinous slip set with large setæ. Each of these plates passes above into a ring, from the upper and outer part of which a short lever passes upwards, and gives attachment to a muscle (levator menti).