Summary
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1.
High-speed film recordings show that larvae of the beetle Notiophilus biguttatus, when attacking a prey, close their mandibles once the prey has been touched by two paired conical processes of the clypeolabrum (rostral horns).
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2.
In the third larval stage, the horns of one pair are about 140 μm long, those of the other pair about 50 μm. In each horn, a mechanosensitive hair is inserted into the distal portion. In the long horns, the hair is 35 μm long, in the short horns only 3.5 μm. Only the tips of the hairs are visible externally. Their shafts are enclosed within a cuticular collar, which makes up the walls of the horns. The cleft between the hair shaft and the surrounding collar is only about 0.1–0.2 μm wide. A sensory receptor cell is connected to each hair, which is characterized as a mechanoreceptor by the presence of a tubular body.
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3.
From structural characteristics, it can be deduced that the sensory receptor cell is stimulated not by axial displacement of the hair but rather by tilting movements, which lead to a transverse compression of the dendrite.
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4.
Geometric determinations from longitudinal sections demonstrate that hair-shaft deflections are limited to only about 20 min of arc in the long horns. The short horn sensory hairs can be deflected to a maximum of about 2°. The maximal displacement of the cuticular lever arm at the level of the tubular body and the values calculated for movement per degree of hair-shaft deflection lie within the normal range for mechanosensitive hairs (Table 1).
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5.
Considering their structural peculiarities, the long-horn receptors seem to be thrust-sensitive and to react to ramp stimuli of 20 min of arc in an all-or-nothing fashion. The short-horn receptors could react to graded hair-shaft deflections.
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6.
The main structural specialization of the rostral horn mechanoreceptors in evolution is the elongation of the socket region to form a cuticular collar around the sensory hair.
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Dedicated to Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. H. Autrum on the occasion of his 75th birthday
Supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (SFB4: G1/E4)
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Altner, H., Bauer, T. Ultrastructure of a specialized, thrust-sensitive, insect mechanoreceptor: Stimulus-transmitting structures and sensory apparatus in the rostral horns of Notiophilus biguttatus . Cell Tissue Res. 226, 337–354 (1982). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00218364
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00218364