GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT OF INSECT

Fig. Schematic drawing of the life cycle of a midge (Diptera) showing the various events and
stages of insect development.

Insect growth is discontinuous, at least for the sclerotized cuticular parts of the body, because the rigid
cuticle limits expansion. Size increase is by molting – periodic formation of new cuticle of greater surface
area and shedding of the old cuticle. Thus, for sclerite-bearing body segments and appendages, increases
in body dimensions are confined to the postmolt period immediately after molting, before the cuticle
stiffens and hardens.

Studies concerning insect development involve two components of growth. The first, the molt
increment, is the increment in size occurring between one instar (growth stage, or the form of the
insect between two successive molts) and the next. Generally, increase in size is measured as the
increase in a single dimension (length or width) of some sclerotized body part, rather than a weight
increment, which may be misleading because of variability in food or water intake. The second
component of growth is the intermolt period or interval, better known as the stadium or instar
duration, which is defined as the time between two successive molts, or more precisely between
successive ecdyses. The magnitude of both molt increments and intermolt periods may be affected by
food supply, temperature, larval density, and physical damage (such as loss of appendages), and may
differ between the sexes of a species.

In collembolans, diplurans, and apterygote insects, growth is indeterminate–the animals continue to

molt until they die. There is no definitive terminal molt in such animals, but they do not continue to
increase in size throughout their adult life. In the vast majority of insects, growth is determinate, as
there is a distinctive instar that marks the end of growth and molting. All insects with determinate growth
become reproductively mature in this final instar, called the adult or imaginal instar. This reproductively
mature individual is called an adult. In most insect orders it is fully winged, although secondary wing loss
has occurred independently in the adults of a number of groups, such as lice, fleas, and certain parasitic
flies, and in the adult females of all scale insects (Hemiptera: Coccoidea).