“…The presence of voluminous nuclei, always observed in the epithelial cells of the various reproductive tracts of B. brevis, could be related to their polyploidy; in accordance with previous considerations concerning the polyploidy in several species of insects of different orders, also within the Homoptera (Chevaillier, 1962(Chevaillier, , 1963Vitale et al, 2011;Vitale and Viscuso, 2015), it cannot be ruled out that, also in B. brevis, this features could be connected to a marked synthesis activity. The synthesis activity in B. brevis is also shown by other ultrastructural features found in the various examined structure, where the secretion mechanisms, moreover, would seem to be of merocrine/apocrine type, in accordance with previous observations on the genital tracts of different insects, also of other orders (Viscuso et al, 2005;Vitale et al, 2011;Vitale and Viscuso, 2015). Although our investigation did not take into account the nature and the specific role of the secretion in the various structures, the finding of spermatozoa gathered in bundles from the seminal vesicles, as opposed to mainly free spermatozoa from the lateral ejaculatory ducts, leads us to hypothesize that the secretion of these two structures is chemically different and, only in the lateral ejaculatory duct, this material is in some way involved in the disaggregation of the bundles.…”