Hair Plate Research Articles

MECHANORECEPTORS IN THE CUTICLE OF THE HONEY BEE: FINE STRUCTURE AND STIMULUS MECHANISM.

The distal nerve process of hair plate sensilla and campaniform sensilla contains a special terminal structure in the form of a bundle of tubules herein designated the "tubular body." Physiological and morphological results indicate that compression at the site of this body probably acts as the stimulus at the cellular level. A ciliary structure separates an outer segment of the distal nerve process from the remaining distal fiber.

Proprioception in Insects

ABSTRACTConcentrations of hair sensilla have been noted by a number of authors in the joints of the insect body and limbs. Special groups of such sensilla in the form of “hair plates” are described from three positions on the legs of Periplaneta americana. The hairs of the hair plates are mechanical sense organs with a slow rate of adaptation. In life the hairs are excited by a fold of the intersegmental membrane, the excitation varying with the position of the joint. It is suggested that these and similar structures in other parts of the bodies of insects act as “position” sense organs.