Vitamin A content and spectral response of house flies reared on diets with and without a vitamin A source

✍ Scribed by Cohen, Charles F. ;Barker, Roy J.

• Publisher: Wiley (John Wiley & Sons)
• Year: 1963
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 380 KB
• Volume: 62
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0095-9898
• DOI: 10.1002/jcp.1030620107

✦ Synopsis

I n most vertebrates vitamin A is an essential dietary requirement. It acts as a stimulus to the building of new cells, or in conjunction with a specific protein to form rhodopsin, which is necessary for rod vision. In contrast, the role of vitamin A in invertebrates, insects in particular, is still uncertain.

For most insects vitamin A is not a dietary essential (Gilmore, '61; Fisher and Kon, '59; Lipke and Frankel, '56). However, some investigators have reported the occurrence in insects of a pigment resembling retinenel (vitamin A aldehyde)