ABSTRACT
Juvenile hormone (JH) research began with V. B. Wigglesworth’s 1936 demonstration of the existence of factors controlling molting and metamorphosis. By experiments conducted by decapitation, joining two insects, or implantation, he was able to trace the source of the hormone inhibiting metamorphosis to the corpora allata. Analytical methods may be divided into two groups. The first group consists of those methods that measure the total JH activity of the test material, for example, bioassay. The second group measures the quantity of each JH separately, for example, gas chromatography/mass spectrometry, usually after suitable derivatization. JHs are implicated in the control of alate and apterate forms in homopotera, queen and worker formation in social hymenoptera, several castes of termites, and the solitary and gregarious phases of grasshoppers as well as the cuticular color change associated with the phases. Compounds that are anti-JH on moths were reported, one of which was a fluorinated mevalonolactone.
