sclerotizedadj.

1928 Ferris & Chamberlin in Entomol. News XXXIX. 215 We might very logically extend the use of the root which appears in the word ‘sclerite’. This word alone is hardly sufficient to meet all our needs and we could speak of ‘sclerotic areas’ or of ‘sclerotized areas’.

1955 P. A. Buxton Nat. Hist. Tsetse Flies iii. 53 The upper wall of the labium is also sclerotized and forms the labial gutter.

1975 Nature 8 May 142/2 A sclerotised edge of the left wing [of the tree cricket] serves as the scraper.

1957 O. W. Richards & R. G. Davies Imms's Gen. Textbk. Entomol. (ed. 9) i. 9 In most insects..the greater part of the cuticle undergoes a process of sclerotization whereby it becomes hardened and darkened to form more or less tough, rigid sclerites separated from each other by membraneous zones of unchanged soft cuticle.

1974 Nature 20 Dec. 710/2 The sclerotisation and tanning of insect cuticles is generally thought to result from a crosslinking of the cuticular proteins by quinonoid derivatives of tyrosine.

1963 R. P. Dales Annelids ii. 41 The cuticle of the earthworm gizzard is like that of the epidermis and is simply collagenous, but in polychaetes the stomodeal cuticle may be sclerotized to form teeth or jaws.

1974 Nature 30 Aug. 799/2 An early effect of ecdysoids at metamorphosis in some caterpillars is conversion of tryptophane into red ommochrome pigments; in fly larvae, the conversion of tyrosine into quinones to sclerotise the puparium.