The cuticular scales of mammalian hairs are predominantly of the overlapping, imbricate type, with edges that are rounded, minutely notched, or flattened.
A newly developed nymph uses one or both of the following mechanisms to escape the egg: a cuticular spine on the head, sometimes known as an egg burster; or internal hydrostatic pressure created by forcing fluids (sometimes in the head) against the site of egg rupture.
Evolution away from the hydrostatic skeleton has made possible faster and stronger movements of one cuticular unit upon another.
The most common sensory receptors in arthropods are the cuticular hairs, many of which are mechanoreceptors, sensitive to touch, vibration, water currents, or sound waves; some hairs are chemoreceptors, which detect odours or chemicals in the water.
Gas exchange can take place across any of the thin cuticular surfaces of the body, and many small barnacles lack discrete respiratory organs.
The jointed cuticular skeleton of arthropods enables them to attain considerable size, up to a few metres in length, and to move rapidly.
Muscles can be inserted on all surfaces of the skeleton, in contrast to the limitations of the cuticular skeleton of arthropods, in which muscles occur on only one side.
The wing consists of cuticular sacs that bud out from the wall of the thorax; the sacs become flattened during development, and the two membranes, pressed together, are stiffened by thickenings of the cuticle that form cylindrical veins carrying tracheae, nerves, and circulating blood to all parts of the wing.
In the three-toed sloth a microscopic alga grows between the cuticular scales of the hairs and appears to be symbiotic; its presence gives a curious greenish gray hue to the coat of the sloth and helps to disguise the animal among the trees.
Flexible cuticular structures on the surface of unsegmented roundworms and arthropods are just as important in providing support as are the more rigid sclerites.
Social hymenopterans use cuticular hydrocarbons in kin recognition, and there may be 20 or more such compounds on the surface of a single insect.
