adjective
definition
Of or relating to the imagination, or to a mental image.
definition
Of or relating to the insect imago.
Examples of imaginal in a Sentence
During this stage the cuticle draws away from the imaginal cuticle which is forming beneath, ultimately becoming separated as a thin transparent pellicle through which the form of the adult can be seen.
These centres of renovation are called imaginal disks or folds.
In other insects the imaginal disks are less completely disconnected from the superficies of the larval hypodermis, and may indeed be merely patches thereof.
The number of imaginal disks in an individual is large, upwards of sixty having been discovered to take part in the formation of the outer body of a fly.
The imaginal disks for the outer wall of the body, some of them, at any rate, include mesodermal rudiments (from which the muscles are developed) as well as hypodermis.
The imaginal disks make their appearance (that is, have been first detected) at very different epochs in the life; their absolute origin has been but little investigated.
Hence we are inclined to look on the imaginal disks as cellular areas that possess in a latent condition the powers of growth and development that exist in the embryo, powers that only become evident in certain special conditions of the organism.
But in general we find that elaboration of imaginal structure is associated with degradation in the nature of the larva, cruciform and vermiform larvae being characteristic of the highest orders of the Hexapoda, so that unlikeness between parent and offspring has increased with the evolution of the class.
In conjunction with the association mentioned above of the most highly developed imaginal with the most degraded larval structure, it indicates clearly that the active, armoured grub preceded the sluggish soft-skinned caterpillar or maggot in the evolution of the Hexapoda.
In the metabolic Hexapoda the resting pupal instar shows externally the wings and other characteristic imaginal organs which have been gradually elaborated beneath the larval cuticle.
Generally the larval is the feeding, the imaginal the breeding, stage of the life-cycle.
Sharp, is unlikely to be superseded by the result of any researches into minute imaginal structure.
The change from an exopterygote to an endopterygote development could, therefore, be brought about by the gradual postponement to a later and later instar of the appearance of the wing-rudiments outside the body, and their correlated growth inwards as imaginal disks.
The Odonata are in many imaginal and larval characters highly specialized; yet they probably arose with the Ephemeroptera as a divergent offshoot of the same primitive isopteroid stock which developed more directly into the living Isoptera, Plecoptera, Dermaptera and Orthoptera.