METASOMA

Metasoma

The metasoma is the posterior part of the body, or tagma, of arthropods whose body is composed of three parts, the other two being the prosoma and the mesosoma. In insects, it contains most of the digestive tract, respiratory system, and circulatory system, and the apical segments are typically modified to form genitalia. In a few of the most primitive insects, the metasomal segments bear small, articulated appendages called "styli", which are often considered to be vestigial. There are also pre-apical appendages in most insect orders, called cerci, which may be multi-segmented and almost resembling a posterior pair of antennae; these may be variously ...

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metasoma

Noun

  1. The posterior part of the body of an arthropod


The above text is a snippet from Wiktionary: metasoma
and as such is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

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