Air tubes called tracheae inflate and deflate in crickets' heads.
Researchers have spotted a new breathing mechanism in crickets, beetles and ants, using X-rays a million times more powerful than the average hospital variety.
Insect respiration, the study confirms, is less the passive diffusion of air, as had long been assumed, and more an active movement, like human breathing.
Most insects have a respiratory system akin to ventilation in a building. Tubes called tracheae run throughout their bodies delivering oxygen. The main airways get smaller as they branch off into their tissues. The tubes open to the outside air through vents called spiracles.
"Everybody always thought that tracheae were stiff tubes, and that they worked by plain diffusion," says Mark Westneat, associate curator of zoology at the Field Museum in Chicago, Illinois. "That idea has been dying for a while and our result puts it to death."
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