Mandible (arthropod mouthpart)
in arthropods, a pair of mouthparts used either for biting or cutting and holding food
The mandible (from Latin: mandibula or mandĭbŭ-lum, a jaw) of an arthropod is a pair of mouthparts used either for biting or cutting and holding food. Mandibles are often simply called jaws. Mandibles are present in the extant subphyla Myriapoda (millipedes and others), Crustacea and Hexapoda (insects etc.). These groups make up the clade Mandibulata and comprise all living arthropods except arachnids and other chelicerates. Unlike chelicerae, mandibles are often used to chew food.
Insects
Insect mandibles are as diverse in form as their food. For instance, grasshoppers and many other plant-eating insects have sharp-edged mandibles that move side to side. Most butterflies and moths lack mandibles as they mainly feed on nectar from flowers.
Queen bees have mandibles with sharp cutting teeth unlike worker bees, who have toothless jaws. Male dobsonflies have slender mandibles up to 2.5 cm long, half as long as the insect's main body.
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This entry incorporates text from “Mandible (arthropod mouthpart)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.