Tagma (biology)

This article is about the biology term. If you were looking for the military unit, see tagma (military).

In biology a tagma (Greek: τάγμα, plural tagmata - τάγματα) 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 metameres within a tagma may be either fused (such as in the head of an insect or a mammal) 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 morphology of members of the phylum Arthropoda, but it applies equally validly in other phyla, such as the Chordata.

In a given taxon the names assigned to particular tagmata are in some sense informal and arbitrary; for example, not all the tagmata of species within a given subphylum of the Arthropoda are homologous to those of species in other subphyla; for one thing they do not all comprise corresponding somites, and for another, not all the tagmata have closely analogous functions or anatomy. In some cases this has led to earlier names for tagmata being more or less successfully superseded. For example, the one-time terms "cephalothorax" and "abdomen" of the Araneae, though not yet strictly regarded as invalid, are giving way to prosoma and opisthosoma. The latter two terms carry less of a suggestion of homology with the significantly different tagmata of insects.