Location and quantitative aspects of ice nucleators in insects

Abstract

Gut contents are the source of ice nucleation in feeding insects; in those non-feeding forms where it has been possible to observe nucleation, residual food within the gut has been the source. When freezing is confined to tissues with no digestive elements, such as excised appendages, preferred nucleation sites may be observed but the tissues or structures involved have not been identified. Haemolymph and intracellular matter are improbable as functional nucleating sites, reducing the anatomical possibilities greatly.Isolated appendages were also used to demonstrate that the relation between freezing temperature and mass in aqueous systems is more accurately defined by the numbers or other quantitative aspects of nucleators than by the mass of water.