Prolonged colchicine treatment induced the formation of numerous cytoplasmic para-crystals in tapetal cells of wheat anthers containing germ line cells at pre-meiotic mitosis or early pre-meiotic interphase. Such paracrystals were up to 8 microns long and 0.7 microns in diameter, and filled up to about 8% of the volume of the cytoplasm. Paracrystals were not bounded by a membrane. A paracrystal...

The three-dimensional structure of the tracheal tapetum lucidum, its reflection properties and the resulting eye glow hue were studied in members of the diurnal butterfly families Pieridae, Nymphalidae, Satyridae and Lycaenidae. Two main groups of tapeta can be distinguished by structural and physiological differences. Whereas in pierids the main tracheal trunk at the bottom of the rhabdom bifu...

In the lycosoid spiders, the secondary eyes possess a grate-shaped tapetum lucidum that reflects light, causing eyeshine when these spiders are viewed with approximately coaxial illumination. This guanine-based reflective surface is thought to increase visual capabilities in low light. We explored the eyeshine of the posterior medial eye in eight taxa of pisaurid and lycosid spiders. The taxa i...

Diverse organisms contain neutral lipids in subcellular particles for food reserves and other purposes. These lipid particles are present in seeds, flowers, pollen and fruit of higher plants, the vegetative and reproductive organs of primitive plants, algae, fungi, nematodes, mammalian glands and brown adipose tissue of mammals, and bacteria. Of all these lipid particles, the oil bodies (OBs) i...

Enhanced backscattering of microwave radiation is demonstrated experimentally in a biomimetic radially anisotropic spherical metamaterial component. The core-shell device replicates the optical function nanospheres observed tapetum reflector compound eye shrimp Litopenaeus vannamei (Boone, 1931) and translates effect from domain to frequencies. Analytical Mie theory calculations numerical-metho...

Fairy circles are circular, barren structures in dry grasslands and the mechanisms generating maintaining them currently under intense discussion. Here, we analysed bacterial fungal communities Namib Desert fairy circle soils, tapetum lining of termite nests, gut prevailing sand Psammotermes allocerus, also neighbouring grass plants. The total active microbial were through amplicon sequencing b...

The genus Emmenomma is revised and now includes three species from Southern Chile, Argentina and Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas). The type species Emmenomma oculatum is redescribed and considered a senior synonym of E. beauchenicum. Emmenomma oculatum obscurum is removed from synonymy with E. oculatum, raised to the species level and redescribed; the male of this species remains unknown. A ne...

Tapetum, orbicule, and pollen grain ontogeny in Colletia paradoxa and Discaria americana were studied with transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The ultrastructural changes observed during the different stages of development in the tapetal cells and related to orbicule and pollen grain formation are described. The proorbicules have the appearance of lipid globule, and their formation is relat...