Fourteen years have passed since the publication of David Spencer Smith's Insect Cells: Their Structure and Function. Here the results of a decade of electronmicroscopic studies on insect cells were summarized in an organized and integrated fashion for the first time, and the ultrastructural characteristics of different specialized cells and tissues were abundantly illustrated in the 117 plates this monograph contained. In the intervening period great progress has been made in the field of Insect Ultrastructure. Organelles not even mentioned in Smith's book, such as synaptonemal complexes,...

Cell biology is moving at breakneck speed, and many of the results from studies on insects have helped in understanding some of the central problems of biology. The time is therefore ripe to provide the scientific community with a series of up-to-date, well illustrated reviews of selected aspects of the sub microscopic cytology of insects. The topics we have included fall into four general groups: seven chapters deal with gametogenesis, four concern develop ing somatic cells, seventeen chapters describe specialized tissues and organs, and three chapters cover cells in pathological states....