Tagma (biology)

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In invertebrate biology, a tagma (plural tagmata) is a specialized grouping of arthropodan segments, such as the head, the thorax, and the abdomen. The segments of a tagma may either be fused or moveable.

Tagma divisions vary among taxa. For example, in trilobites the tagmata are the cephalon (head), thorax (body), and pygidium (tail), whereas in hexapods, these same divisions are called head, thorax, and abdomen. The body of spiders and some crustaceans is divided into two tagmata: the cephalothorax and the opisthosoma (spiders) or abdomen (crustaceans).

The evolutionary process which creates tagmata by fusing and modifying segments is called tagmosis.