one of a pair of sensory appendages at the tip of the abdomen of some insects and other arthropods
Word origin
C19: from New Latin, from Greek kerkos tail
Examples of 'cerci' in a sentence
cerci
Crickets and other orthopteran insects sense air currents with a pair of abdominal appendages resembling antennae, called cerci.
John P Miller, Susan Krueger, Jeffrey J Heys, Tomas Gedeon 2011, 'Quantitative characterization of the filiform mechanosensory hair array on the cricketcercus.', PLoS ONEhttp://europepmc.org/articles/PMC3221685?pdf=render. Retrieved from PLOS CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode)
Then we studied the morphology of chemosensory structures present on the female antenna, cerci and ovipositor.
Patricia C. Fernández, Celina L. Braccini, Camila Dávila, Romina B. Barrozo, M. VictoriaColl Aráoz, Teresa Cerrillo, Jonathan Gershenzon, Michael Reichelt, Jorge A. Zavala 2019, 'The use of Leaf Surface Contact Cues During Oviposition Explains Field Preferencesin the Willow Sawfly Nematus Oligospilus', Scientific Reportshttp://link.springer.com/article/10.1038/s41598-019-41318-7. Retrieved from DOAJ CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode)