The eye margin and compound-eye development in the cockroach: evidence against recruitment.

The compound eye of the cockroach nymph grows from stadium to stadium by the addition of new ommatidia to the growing edge of the eye. By a series of transplant operations on Periplaneta americana and from SEM studies on Gromphadorhina portentosa it is shown that the proliferating region of the eye margin is a budding zone. There is no recruitment of larval head-capsule epidermis into the eye.