MadSci Network: Zoology |
Well, yea and no..Only vertebrates have teeth as we
know them, but insects, including caterpillars, do have structures called
"teeth".
Caterpillar mouthparts are mandibles, which are the mouthparts of all the
arthropods - by far the largest and most successful animal group, which
includes insects, crustaceans, spiders and relatives, millipedes,
centipedes and a few more slightly obscure groups of things.
The only picture of a caterpillar's head was
at a site about the Monarch Butterfly, which also has some more information
about caterpillar anatomy.
Mandibles swing side to side, cutting and crushing food in most insects,
but they are modified to do other jobs in some organisms. Biting and
Chewing insects, like caterpillars, have mandibles with small, sharp
projections, called teeth that work against each other similarly to
mammalian teeth do, to bite and
chew. You can just about see the teeth on the mandibles of some of these Costa Rican
ants,
especially
on
this page.
A
bit more about insect jaws (ants, again).
Hope this helps. Thanks for asking,
Yours,
James
================================================
James Cotton
Div. of Environmental and Evolutionary Biology
Institute of Biomedical and Life Sciences
University of Glasgow
Graham Kerr Building
Glasgow G12 8QQ
Telephone: 0141 330 5346
Fax: 0141 330 2792
http://taxonomy.zoology.g
la.ac.uk/~jcotton
Try the links in the MadSci Library for more information on Zoology.