An electron microscopic study of flight muscle breakdown in an aphid Megoura viciae.

Within two days of settling to feed on a host plant degenerative changes can be detected in the flight muscles of aphids at the ultrastructural level. The thick myosin filaments and the M Lines and later the Z bands disappear leaving the thin actin filaments in the cytoplasm. The mitochondria change their configuration and become enveloped in cytosegresomes. As mitochondria become reduced in number the numbers of lysosomes and residual bodies in the cells build up. The cells then appear to become dispersed as finger-like processes protrude from them and are pinched off.