Structure and ultrastructure of the insect midgut

Abstract

This chapter provides a brief overview of insect midgut structure and ultrastructure, and thereby sets the book into context; an exhaustive review of the subject is neither appropriate nor necessary here. Rather, we aim to describe the structural components of the midgut, introduce some terminology, and provide a framework for the subsequent chapters. Studies on midgut structure are probably the least topical of all those covered in this text and so knowledge is moving forward only slowly. We therefore refer the readers to more detailed review articles (Bignell, 1981; Andries, 1982; Mori, 1983; Cioffi, 1984; Martoja and Ballan-Dufran~ais, 1984; Dow, 1986; Billingsley, 1990). The limited advances in this area of research in the past decade or so makes them still useful for reference purposes, but given the progress in the related areas of cell and molecular biology, many of the interpretations in the reviews are worthy of reconsideration. Where appropriate, we will attempt to do this, but such advances are usually more fully considered in subsequent chapters.