Cockroaches Coleoptera

Research Needs. Over the years L-ascorbic acid has been shown to be an essential nutrient for many insects including species of Lepidoptera, Orthoptera, Coleoptera, and Diptera. Others such as cockroaches, houseflies, and mealworms are reared on simple diets without added ascorbic acid. Perhaps those insects require very low levels of vitamin C in their diets. A sensitive analytical method is needed to measure levels of L-ascorbic acid and dehydroascorbic acid in insect tissue and food. Such a method, which is likely to be developed using HPLC with electrochemical detection, could be used to monitor vitamin C levels in feed ingredients as well as in tissues during an insect s life cycle. This information is needed to determine whether ascorbic acid is used to... 

Quinones are distributed widely from opilionids and millipedes to grasshoppers, cockroaches and caddis flies, but are most frequently found in beetles (Coleoptera). Phenols have been shown to be oxidized to qui-nones in both millipedes and beetles. It was shown some time ago in the beetle Eloides longicollis, that quinones can arise by two independent pathways. Labelled tyrosine, acetic, propionic and malonic acids were all used. Benzoquinone itself was preferentially made from labelled tyrosine. Simple alkylquinones were produced by the acetate pathway (Meinwald, Happ, Labows and Eisner, Science, 1966, 151, 79). Propionic acid was... 

---