Cuticle

As a cuticle or cuticle (Latin cutis, skin ' ) is defined as

• In botany an often somewhat folded protective layer consisting of wax, the outer walls of the epidermis lies in plants. It protects the plant tissues from water loss and increases the mechanical strength of the epidermis. Often used to seal cutin ( a biological wax) is incorporated into the cuticle or superposed her.

• In mycology, the top layer of skin that covers the fruiting bodies of the fungus. If they formed of flat, horizontally arranged hyphae, one speaks of a cutis, in upright hyphae of a dermis.
• A the surface of animal and human epithelia ( particularly the epidermis ) resting " cuticle " as solid cell excretion, providing mechanical protection and shielding of the internal environment. Moreover, the use of cuticle for hair cuticle is common.
• In molting animals ( Ecdysozoa ) the body ceiling exterior. It gives the body shape and stability and is a typically multi-layer secretion of epidermal cells. In insects and other arthropods, the cuticle is by chitin, partially also reinforced lime to a self-supporting exoskeleton that protects against dehydration and arthropods in the first place, a country life. In the other strains of molting animals (among nematodes ( Nematoda ), tardigrades ( Tardigrada ) ) the cuticle is reinforced by the internal pressure of the coelomic fluid to a hydraulic skeleton. Also annelids have such cuticle.
• The egg, for example, the egg, the cuticle is a thin, almost invisible to the naked eye cuticle that protects the egg inside from drying out and from infection.
• The cuticle is also called cuticle.