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Updated: May 7, 2025
In this tube are two large vessels or tracheæ which open just below the tip of the tube and extend forward through the whole length of the body, giving off branches here and there that divide into still smaller branches until every part of the body is reached by some of the small divisions of this tracheal system that carries the oxygen to all the tissues.
These are the openings into the tracheal or respiratory system. The long cylindrical abdomen is composed of eight segments. These are rather strongly chitinized above and below, but a narrow strip along the side is unchitinized. In this strip are situated the abdominal breathing-pores.
But these appearances are deceptive, for, on removing the nymph from the split sheath formed by the integuments of the pseudochrysalis, we find, at the bottom of this sheath, a third cast skin, the last of those which the creature has so far rejected. This skin is even now adhering to the nymph by a few tracheal filaments.
On this epidermal bag, this sort of transparent leather bottle, formed by the larva's skin detached all of a piece, without a slit of any kind, we can distinguish the several well-preserved external organs: the head, with its antennæ, mandibles, paws and palpi; the thoracic segments, with their vestiges of legs; the abdomen, with its chain of breathing-holes still connected one to another by tracheal threads.
The length of the breathing-tube is correlated with the feeding-habits of the larvæ. The last segment has at its tip four thin flat plates, the tracheal gills. These too are larger or smaller according to the habits of the larvæ.
Porro describes a case of congenital obliteration of the esophagus which ended in a cecal pouch about one inch below the inferior portion of the glottidean aperture and from this point to the stomach only measured an inch; there was also tracheal communication.
She, drunk with her wings, obeying the magnificent law of the race that chooses her lover, and enacts that the strongest alone shall attain her in the solitude of the ether, she rises still; and, for the first time in her life, the blue morning air rushes into her stigmata, singing its song, like the blood of heaven, in the myriad tubes of the tracheal sacs, nourished on space, that fill the centre of her body.
Those species that feed close to the surface and have the tip of the breathing-tube above the surface most of the time have very small tracheal gills, while those that feed mostly on the bottom have them well developed. When first hatched the larvæ are of course very small. If the weather is warm and the food is abundant they grow very rapidly.
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