Context-dependent coordination of movement in Tribolium castaneum larvae.

ABSTRACT: Insect pests such as the red flour beetle (Tribolium castaneum) destroy up to 20% of stored grain products worldwide, making them a significant threat to food security. Their success hinges upon adapting their movements to unpredictable, heterogeneous environments like flour. Tribolium is well developed as a genetic model system; however, little is known about its natural locomotion and how its nervous system coordinates adaptive movement. Here, we employed videographic whole-animal and leg tracking to assess how Tribolium larvae locomote over different substrates and analyse their gait kinematics across speeds. Unlike many hexapods, larvae employed a bilaterally symmetric, posterior-to-anterior wave gait during fast locomotion. At slower speeds, coordination within thoracic segments was d

SUBMITTER: Xu Ying B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12045640 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature