Rearrangements in the musculature correlate with jumping behaviour in legless Mediterranean fruit fly larvae Ceratitis capitata (Tephritidae).

ABSTRACT: Larvae of holometabolic insects evolved different crawling strategies depending on the presence or absence of larval legs or life style. A rather unusual mode of locomotion has independently evolved in legless larvae of several dipteran species. Maggots of the Mediterranean fruit fly Ceratitis capitata developed an effective jumping mechanism to increase locomotion speed or to deter predators during the search for suitable pupation sites. Here, we use high-speed videography to visualize even the fastest movements during jump preparation and take-off. Quantification of kinetic and biometric parameters reveal that maggots jump up to 15-fold of their body length from a standing position and gain speed with 27 times the acceleration of gravity. Videos at high spatial resolution show the mechan

SUBMITTER: Diesner M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9076836 | biostudies-literature | 2022 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature