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Journal of Experimental Biology 32,591-617 (1955)
Published by Company of Biologists 1955

The Wetting of Insect Cuticles by Water

M. W. HOLDGATE ¹

¹ Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge

1. The water contact angles of insects show a wide range of variation, which is broadly correlated with surface roughness and with habitat.

2. The contact angles of species inhabiting stored products or carrion are greatly modified by contamination. This produces large variations between apparently similar individuals.

3. In terrestrial insects surface roughness increases the contact angles to very large apparent values. Detailed analyses of its effect have been made in the pupa of Tenebrio molitor and the adult Calliphora erythrocephala. In some aquatic insects surface roughness leads to a reduction in the contact angles; this has been studied in the nymph of Anax imperator.

4. Prolonged immersion in water causes a lowering of the contact angles of all the insects examined, and the low angles of many aquatic species may therefore be the direct effect of their environment. In some aquatic species there is evidence of the active maintenance of a large contact angle during life.

5. Changes in contact angle accompany processes of cuticle secretion and will occur at any moult if changes in roughness or habitat take place.

6. The observed variations of surface properties can be explained without assuming any variation in the chemical composition of the cuticle surface. Wetting properties are of little value as indicators of cuticle surface composition.

7. The biological aspects of insect surface properties are briefly discussed.

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