# Looking for a word: a segment of an insect **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 20, 2019, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-word-a-segment-of-an-insect/842052 "2019-10-20T21:50:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2019, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-word-a-segment-of-an-insect/842052/1 "2019-10-20T21:50:17Z")
There is a word that describes a single segment (not body part, each of the head, abdomen, and tail are made up of many segments) in an insect. The segment might be a leg, a wing, an antenna, a mouth part. It was a word one part of which was either reme or rame which was from the Latin word for oar. I read this somewhere and cannot recall where. Maybe somewhere in Steven Jay Gould. ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2019, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-word-a-segment-of-an-insect/842052/2 "2019-10-20T22:34:02Z")
Not “tagma”, is it? > **[Tagma (biology)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tagma_(biology))** > > In biology, a tagma (Greek: τάγμα, plural tagmata – τάγματα - body of soldiers; battalion) is a specialized grouping of multiple segments or metameres into a coherently functional morphological unit. Familiar examples are the head, the thorax, and the abdomen of insects. The segments within a tagma may be either fused (such as in the head of an insect) or so jointed as to be independently moveable (such as in the abdomen of most insects). > Usually the term is taken to refer to tagmata in the morp... ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2019, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-word-a-segment-of-an-insect/842052/3 "2019-10-20T22:43:23Z")
… ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim_r.mortiss/32/142_2.png) [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_R.Mortiss)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2019, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-word-a-segment-of-an-insect/842052/4 "2019-10-20T23:03:05Z")
The above link doesn’t work. Try this: [tagma](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tagma_(biology)) ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2019, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-word-a-segment-of-an-insect/842052/5 "2019-10-20T23:12:51Z")
Annulate: Formed in ring-like segments or with ring-like markings. Antennomere: A segment of an antenna. Urite: a segment or part of the abdomen in insects. > **[Glossary of entomology terms](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_entomology_terms)** > > This glossary of entomology describes terms used in the formal study of insect species by entomologists. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2019, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-word-a-segment-of-an-insect/842052/6 "2019-10-21T12:54:32Z")
Another term is [tergite](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tergum). ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2019, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-word-a-segment-of-an-insect/842052/7 "2019-10-21T13:00:24Z")
And, I should have read the OP more clearly–you are thinking of “biramous,” which is a description for a limb with two branches, and you probably read it in a description of [trilobite anatomy](https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Trilobite-biramous-limb-morphology-A-Close-up-of-Middle-Cambrian-Olenoides-serratus_fig3_275649163). ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2019, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-word-a-segment-of-an-insect/842052/8 "2019-10-21T13:22:58Z")
No, it was for insects and the word was Latin for oar. That’s all I remember, except that it was likely from Gould. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2019, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-word-a-segment-of-an-insect/842052/9 "2019-10-21T13:41:56Z")
Sorry, but [I’m right on this](https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-m&q=%22Biramous+appendages%22+%22stephen+jay+gould%22&oq=%22Biramous+appendages%22+%22stephen+jay+gould%22&aqs=heirloom-srp..). ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2019, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-word-a-segment-of-an-insect/842052/10 "2019-10-21T13:46:05Z")
(Of course, you can slice off the “bi” and stick on a “[uni](https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-m&q=%E2%80%8Buniramous+%22stephen+jay+gould%22&oq=%E2%80%8Buniramous+%22stephen+jay+gould%22&aqs=heirloom-srp..).”) ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2019, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-word-a-segment-of-an-insect/842052/11 "2019-10-21T16:45:30Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > Sorry, but [I’m right on this](https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-m&q=%22Biramous+appendages%22+%22stephen+jay+gould%22&oq=%22Biramous+appendages%22+%22stephen+jay+gould%22&aqs=heirloom-srp..). That must be it. Thanks. Wonder what the noun is. Birame? ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2019, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-word-a-segment-of-an-insect/842052/12 "2019-10-21T17:28:49Z")
I remember the discussion of ‘biramous segments’ in _Wonderful Life_ by Gould. > [@](#): > > This original structure (figure 3) is called a biramous (literally, “two-branched”) limb. {If you retain no other term from this discussion, please inscribe the definition of a biramous limb in your long-term memory. It is the single most important facet of arthropod anatomy in our Burgess discussion.} Specialized arthropods often lose one of the two branches, retaining the other as a uniramous (“one-branched”) limb. (Please place “uniramous” next to “biramous” in your long-term memory.) The higher-level taxonomy of arthropods records the different mixes of uniramous and biramous limbs on various parts of the body. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2019, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-word-a-segment-of-an-insect/842052/13 "2019-10-21T19:16:54Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > That must be it. Thanks. Wonder what the noun is. Birame? The term is a description, not a name: you could describe the human hand as five-fingered, but you don’t call the hand a “fivefing.” biramous just means that the limb starts off at the body as a single branch (or “oar”) and then splits into two branches (the “bi”) with one usually functioning as a gill and one for walking, swimming, etc. The biramous limb [is the primitive character](https://www.google.com/search?q=Biramous+legs+primitive+characteristic&oq=Biramous+legs+primitive+characteristic&aqs=heirloom-srp..) for arthropods, but through evolution one or the other brance can be lost, making it a uniramous limb. Insects, for example, have lost the gill branch on their walking legs.