S Abdominal Segments and i Appendages.
They may be distinguished from the Neuroptera by the elongation of the head into a beak, the small prothorax, the narrow, elongate wings with predominantly longitudinal neuration, the presence of abdominal cerci and the cruciform larva.
In the abdominal exoskeleton the segmental structure is very clearly marked, a series of sclerites - dorsal terga and abdominal sterna - being connected by pale, feebly chitinized cuticle, so that considerable freedom of movement between the segments is possible.
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The male opening is on the ninth abdominal segment, to which belong the processes that form the claspers or genital armature.
In some embryos there is but a single pair of these rudiments (or vestiges) situate on the first abdominal segment, and in some cases they become invaginations of a glandular nature.
From this point backwards the successive abdominal segments, as far as the seventh or eighth, can be readily made out.
Primitively (?) wingless Hexapods with cumacean mandibles, distinct maxillulae, and locomotor abdominal appendages.
The nervous system is remarkably concentrated in some beetles, the abdominal ganglia showing a tendency to become shifted forward and crowded together, and in certain chafers all the thoracic and abdominal ganglia are fused into a single nervecentre situated in the thorax, - a degree of specialization only matched in the insectan class among the Hemiptera and some muscid flies.
In the adult there is a pair of such glands opening ventrally on the hindmost thoracic segment, or at the base of the abdomen; but in the young insect the glands are situated dorsally and open to the exterior on a variable number of the abdominal terga.
The larvae have the three pairs of legs well developed, and the hinder abdominal segments swollen.