Page:Insects - Their Ways and Means of Living.djvu/297

 METAMORPHOSIS

is undoubtedly an advantage to a larva, especially to such species as lire in narrow spaces, or that burrow into the ground or into the stems and twigs of plants; but it probably just happened that the pupal stage was first developed in an insect that had ingrowing wings. The typical larvae are the caterpillars, the grubs, and the maggots, young insects with little or no resemblance to their parents. The larvae of some of the beetles (Fig. 137) and of some members of the order Neuroptera, however, are much like the adults of their species, except for the lack of external wings and the compound eyes; and even among the typical larvae some species have more of the adult characters than others. The caterpillar (Fig. I36) or the grub of the May-beetle (Fig. B), for example, both being pro- vided with legs, have a much greater resemblance to an adult insect than has the wormlike leg- less grub of the wasp (Fig. 133 B) or the maggot of the fly (Fig. F,c. 139. Springtails, ruera- I 8 2 D). Hence, we see, the de- bers of the Order Con,bo, gree of transformation may vary scendedinsects perhapSfrom thedirectlYunknownde- much even among insects that wingless ancestors of winged have a so-called "complete" inse«ts metamorphosis. There are a few insects that have no metamorphosis at all. These are wingless insects belonging to the groups known as Collembola and Thvsanura (Figs. 57, 39, 140) and are probably direct descendants from the primitive wingless ancestors of the winged insects. These insects during their growth shed the skin at intervals, but they do not undergo a change of form; they illustrate the

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INSECTS