Morphogenesis of early embryonic development in the greater wax moth, galleria mellonella (lepidoptera: Pyralidae)

Abstract

Background and Objective: Galleria mellonella (G. mellonella) is an apicultural pest. The early embryonic development in Galleria mellonella is the target of this study, which is important in many subfields, including developmental biology, ecology and applied entomology. Material and Methods: By microscopy of whole mount preparations, the embryos samples were dechorionated, permeabilized and fixed before staining with different dyes. Results: The study provides a first timeline of morphological hallmarks during the following early developmental stages: (1) Maturation, fertilization and cleavage [0-4.5 h post-oviposition (PO)], (2) Blastoderm formation (5-11 h PO), (3) Germ disk, serosa formation and beginning of Amnion (12-22.5 h. PO) and (4) Immersion of germ disk into the yolk and formation of the germ band during anatrepsis movement (22-31 h PO). Conclusion: The whole mount method could be an easy way than the sectioning methods to study the embryogenesis of insect and studying the morphological markers that have a phylogenetic relation in same family species.