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In biology
Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary i ...
, the imago (Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
for "image") is the last stage an insect
Insects (from Latin ') are pancrustacean hexapod invertebrates of the class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body ( head, thorax and abdomen), three ...
attains during its metamorphosis, its process of growth and development; it is also called the imaginal stage, the stage in which the insect attains maturity. It follows the final ecdysis of the immature instar
An instar (, from the Latin '' īnstar'', "form", "likeness") is a developmental stage of arthropods, such as insects, between each moult (''ecdysis''), until sexual maturity is reached. Arthropods must shed the exoskeleton in order to grow or ...
s.Carpenter, Geo. H., The Life-Story of Insects. Cambridge University Press 1913. May be downloaded from: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16410 or https://archive.org/details/thelifestoryofin16410gut
In a member of the Ametabola or Hemimetabola, in which metamorphosis is "incomplete", the final ecdysis follows the last immature or '' nymphal'' stage.
In members of the Holometabola, in which there is a pupal stage, the final ecdysis follows emergence from the pupa
A pupa ( la, pupa, "doll"; plural: ''pupae'') is the life stage of some insects undergoing transformation between immature and mature stages. Insects that go through a pupal stage are holometabolous: they go through four distinct stages in thei ...
, after which the metamorphosis is complete, although there is a prolonged period of maturation in some species.
The imago is the only stage during which the insect is sexually mature
Sexual maturity is the capability of an organism to reproduce. In humans it might be considered synonymous with adulthood, but here puberty is the name for the process of biological sexual maturation, while adulthood is based on cultural definiti ...
and, if it is a winged species, has functional wings. The imago often is referred to as the adult stage.
Members of the order Ephemeroptera (mayflies) do not have a pupal stage, but they briefly pass through an extra winged stage called the subimago
Mayflies (also known as shadflies or fishflies in Canada and the upper Midwestern United States, as Canadian soldiers in the American Great Lakes region, and as up-winged flies in the United Kingdom) are aquatic insects belonging to the order ...
. Insects at this stage have functional wings but are not yet sexually mature.
The Latin plural of ''imago'' is ''imagines'', and this is the term generally used by entomologists –
however, ''imagoes'' is also acceptable.Gordh, Gordon; Headrick, David H. ''A Dictionary of Entomology''. Publisher: CABI 2010.
See also
*Imaginal disc
An imaginal disc is one of the parts of a holometabolous insect larva that will become a portion of the outside of the adult insect during the pupal transformation. Contained within the body of the larva, there are pairs of discs that will for ...
References
Insect developmental biology {{Insect-stub