Chitin

[V. Scalo]

> 
> Fungal mycelium is mostly liquid filled tubes a few microns in diameter
> with chitin walls that are a few tenths of a micron thick,or less.If you
> remove all water soluble proteins and sugars you don't have a whole lot
> left. Even if the chitin cell wall were embedded in sediment and
> fossilized, you'd have a hard time finding it, since most of the sediment
> is made of particles of several microns.(pure clays are smaller,but they
> seldom harbor fungi)
> 
> > and mycellium of a fungus is layered with chitin throughout, while
> > only the thin exoskeleton of an insect has chitin. The internal organs

  My introductory entomology  text states that the properties of insects
bodies is also determined by the proteins that are also part of the
exoskeleton.
-- 
V. Scalo
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