C-banding in male meiotic chromosomes of Poekilocerus pictus (Acrididae: Orthoptera)

Abstract

Studies on the C-heterochromatin during the meiosis in the Indian grasshopper Poekilocerus pictus has been carried out using the BSG technique presumably for the first time. It is shown that the genome of this grasshopper is endowed with large amounts of repetitive DNA in the centromeric, interstitial and telomeric regions. This Acridid under study differs in having distinct centromeric, interstitial and telomeric blocks in majority of the chromosomes from the British Acridid Myrmeleotettix maculatus which has interstitial bands only in the X-chromosome and the B-chromosome but not in the autosomes.