=mesothorax; q.v.

Medius: middle.

Mega- Megalo-: large.

Melanic: with a blackish suffusion.

Melanism: an abnormal or unusual darkening: a suffusion with
blackish.

Mellifera: honey-makers: applied to bees as a whole.

Melliferous: honey-producing, or producers of honey.

Mellisugous: honey-sucking: a feeder on honey.

Member: any one of the external appendages.

Membranaceous: thin, skin-like, semi-transparent, like parchment:
of a thin, pliable texture.

Membrana retinens: the stretched part of the membrane around the
rectum of butterfly larvae, used in the change to the chrysalis.

Membrane -ana: any thin, transparent, flexible body tissue:
specifically the wing tissue between the veins: in Heteroptera, the thin
membranous tip of the hemelytra.

Membranous or eous: composed of membrane or skin-like tissue.

Membranule: the small opaque expansion at base of wings in
Odonata.

Meniscoidal: with one side concave the other convex, like a round
segment from a hollow sphere.

Menognatha: insects in which both young and adults feed by
mandibles; e.g. the Orthoptera: see menorhyncha and metagnatha.

Menorhyncha: forms in which both young and adult take food by
suction e.g. Hemiptera: see metognatha and metagnatha.

Mental suture: in Coleoptera, the line between mentum and gula.

Mentigerous: bearing or having a mentum.

Mentum: a labial sclerite bearing the movable parts; attached to and
sometimes fused with the sub-mentum; corresponds to the (united)
stipes of maxillae: in Coleoptera, what is usually called mentum is
really submentum: in Diptera, the term is applied to the posterior oral
margin: in Hymenoptera, is part of "tongue," the second joint bearing
the labial palpi, paraglossae and ligula.

Merdivorous: feeding upon dung or excrement: see scatophagous.

Meriaeum: the posterior inflected part of the metasternum in
Coleoptera.

Meroistic: ovaries that secrete yolk or vitellaginous cells as well as ova.

Mesad: extending or directed toward the median plane.

Mesal: pertaining to, situated on or in the median plane of the body.

Mesenchym: that portion of the mesoderm that produces the
connective tissues of the body.

Mesenteron: the mid-gut, stomach or chylific ventricle: the middle
portion of the primitive intestinal canal, lined with entoderm.

Mesepimeron: in Odonata: the sclerite between humeral and first
lateral suture.

Mesepisterna: in Odonata,- the oblique lateral