16 Mouthparts for Every Meal-High

Mouthparts for Every Meal FOCUS Question How do mouthparts help insects get food and eat it?

Magnificent Mouthparts A hungry grasshopper crawls across a leaf. Chomp, chomp! Its sharp jaws open and close to bite off parts of the leaf. A smaller, second set of jaws helps break down the food into bite-sized pieces. The grasshopper's upper and lower lips keep the food from falling out before the insect pushes it into its mouth. Gulp! The grasshopper gets ready to take another bite of its dinner. All insects have mouthparts, but these tiny structures can be very different, depending on the insect's diet. Mouthparts help insects bite, chew, slurp, and more. Let's learn about these magnificent mouthparts.

Biting and Chewing Grasshoppers use their mouthparts for biting and chewing. Beetles, ants, caterpillars, and termites also chew their food. These insects munch on solid food such as leaves, wood, and even other insects. Strong jaws called mandibles help these insects bite, grind, and crush their food. Mandibles open and close sideways, like a pair of hands clapping. Behind these jaws are a smaller set of jaws called maxillae (mak-SILL-ee). Maxillae have fingerlike structures that allow an insect to taste the food. Maxillae also move the food around so the mandibles can bite and cut it.

Busy, Busy Bees Honeybees are busy little insects. They gather pollen and nectar from flowers. They have the same mouthparts as chewing insects, but these parts look a bit different. Their mandibles are smaller and are used for cutting or grasping. Bees often use them for collecting pollen or for carrying things in and out of their hive. Honeybees have a proboscis (pro-BOSS-sis) to help them drink nectar. Slurp! This long, hairy tongue works like a straw to suck up the sugary liquid. A honeybee's lower lip, or labium, forms this tube-shaped mouthpart.

Slurp and Siphon Like bees, butterflies have mouthparts suited to drinking nectar from flowers. A butterfly's proboscis is very long. It sits curled up underneath the head. When the butterfly finds a tasty flower, it uncurls its proboscis and dips it into the nectar like a straw. It then siphons, or sucks, out the nectar. When the butterfly is done drinking, it rolls its tongue back up! Moths have similar types of mouthparts. The proboscis of a hawk moth can be up to 33 centimeters (13 in.) long!

Metamorphosis for Mouthparts When a caterpillar hatches from an egg, it's ready to eat! Its sharp mandibles bite off the edges of a leaf. The maxillae break up the food even more. The caterpillar's upper and lower lips— the labrum and labium— push the meal toward its mouth. Weeks later, the insect emerges from its cocoon. It's now a butterfly. It drinks nectar and no longer has mandibles. Its maxillae have formed into a proboscis. The lower lip has changed into labial palps, which help it sense food. This kind of physical change is called a metamorphosis. A caterpillar has mouthparts for chewing. After the metamorphosis, a butterfly has mouthparts for sucking liquid food.