Great Leopard Moth lives w/o head

LeilaNami

Arachnoking
Old Timer
Joined
Jun 8, 2006
Messages
2,164
So we caught a great leopard moth that seemed to be on his way out. The odd thing was that he was fully functioning and responding with the complete absence of the head. I always thought the nerve ganglion was located in the head so the removal only caused nerve responses until death. This moth however responded normally to all stimuli while walking on my hand. According to their biology, how is this possible?
 

lucanidae

Arachnoprince
Old Timer
Joined
Jan 15, 2006
Messages
1,081
The brain ganglion is in the head, however the subesophageal ganglion is located right at the front of the thorax, and of course each segment of the abdomen has its own ganglia or a fusion of ganglia at some point which run the legs. As long as the subesophageal is bacially in tact an insect will resond to everything but vision and antenna as normal for an extended period of time. This is how some parasitoid wasps take advantage of their prey, by envenomating the subesophageal to cut off brain messages to the rest of the body.

Another plausible alternative is that the head is very compact and pointing downward....sometimes it looks like the larger silk moths have no head when they really do. Lots of people make that mistake.
 
Top