beetles of the genus Lagria Maintain essential symbiotic bacteria during metamorphosis using pockets. Article about it published Frontiers in Physiology.
These insects require specialized symbiont bacteria to protect themselves from fungi until they mature. females of many species Lagria It stores microbes in glands next to the oviduct and is therefore immediately covered with bacteria when forming a wall. At the same time, it wasn’t clear to scientists how these bacteria survived for so long when the insect’s body underwent fundamental changes.
Now experts from the University of Copenhagen have studied the pupae of the species. Lagria villa and Lagria hirta using computed tomography. As a result, they found three unique bilobed pockets at the end of the thoracic segment of female pupae. In male pupae, the pockets are primitive and contain little or no symbionts. This makes sense because they are not needed in adulthood, and females keep them just to squeeze the eggs into the clutch.
To find out exactly how the bacteria got from the pockets to the glands of the genitals, the authors sprinkled many one micrometer wide polystyrene fluorescent beads on the surface of the early pupae. After the development and emergence of an adult insect’s pupa, most of the balls ended up at the end of the insect’s abdomen – exactly where the genitals were located.
Scientists hypothesize that due to the frictional force, bacteria are pushed towards the genitals during hatching.
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