AFM and CT study of Zophoba smorio morphology and microstructure

Abstract

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the use of insects as food and stuff for production of new feeds for farm animals. At the moment, more than 2000 species of edible insects have been described in the literature. The increased interest is based on the potential of using insects to convert low-quality organic materials into high-quality feed and food. At the moment, there are a lot of aspects that should be studied before starting to use insects' biomass in food and feed technologies, including cultivation and industrial processing. Earlier, the authors found that Zophobas morio Fabricius, 1776 (Coleoptera, Tenebrionidae) can change the color in case of melanin-based feeding. To understand the mechanism of this phenomenon, there were carried out researches on the morphology and microstructure of Z. morio larvae, which results have been described in the article