Dorsal vessel

(Zool.)

a central pulsating blood vessel along the back of insects, acting as a heart.

See also: Dorsal

References in periodicals archive ?

Careful removal of the digestive tract and fat body will expose the dorsal vessel (Figure 6).

The Madagascar hissing cockroach: a new model for learning insect anatomy

In accordance with the direction of blood flow from the anterior to the posterior in the ventral vessel and then from the posterior to the anterior in the dorsal vessel as in polychaetes in general (Fransen, 1988), blood flows from the periphery of the trophosome, passing between the bacteriocytes into the axial vessels.

The amount of oxygen within the ventral vessel remains the same along the longitudinal body axis as blood leaks from the ventral vessel through the trophosome to the dorsal vessel.

Organization and microanatomy of the Sclerolinum contortum trophosome (Polychaeta, Siboglinidae)

The entry site of the dorsal vessels can be variable.

Atypical scaphoid avascular necrosis

The scaphoid bone receives the majority of its blood supply from dorsal vessels just distal to an area in the middle of the bone often referred to as the waist of the scaphoid bone.