clypeus

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a shieldlike plate on the front of an insect's head, between the frons and the upper lip

   The beetle's short horn projected from the center of its clypeus.

2. 2
   noun

   the front part of a spider's carapace between the eyes and the forward edge

   The arachnologist compared the width of the spider's clypeus with the diameter of its eyes.

From New Latin clypeus, from Latin clipeus or clypeus ("round shield"), itself probably borrowed from Greek klypeos. Anatomists applied the shield image to the hard plate at the front of an arthropod's head.

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