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 Erioptera larvae with terminal spines
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| atylotus |
Posted on 24-05-2012 09:59
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 Member Location: Amsterdam, NL Posts: 1164 Joined: 29.05.09 |
In The Netherlands we commonly encounter Limoniidae larvae with two terminal spines (see photos). I used to call this larvae Erioptera squalida, only because of the fact that also the larvae and pupae of this species had been described as a species piercing the roots of Glyceria plants (see Houlihan 1969). However, Houlihan (1969) only gives a description of the pupae, so I do not know what the larvae looks like. He just mentioned (p262) that the larvae also pierces. Later on, I found out that Tsalolikhin (1999, p419) depicted the posterior end of E. flavata (Westhoff) (a drawing from Rozkosny & Pokorny 1980) showing these terminal spines. In the original paper by Rozkosny & Pokorny (1980) however (I have the entire book as PDF on request), it is related to E. gemina Tjeder, 1967 (the synonym of flavata). But than again, if you read the description of the larva of Trichosticha flavescens Meigen (syn. of E. flavata according to http://staff.scie...202007.pdf) in Beling (1878, p50), there is no mentioning of terminal spines, just the "normal 5 lobes and black longitudinal stripes". So something is strange about it. However, since then, I name our taxon Erioptera squalida/flavata. I never succeeded in finding adult Limoniidae or fully mature pupa. It maybe very simple, the description of T. flavescens by Beling (1878) is another Erioptera species, other than E. flavata (=E. gemina) and our larvae simply belongs to either E. flavata or the never described larvae of E. squalida. Or Rozkosny and Pokorny (1980) made a mistake? Did anyone ever find or breed such larvae and/or have you any idea about the true taxonname of our specimen? atylotus attached the following image:  [42.89Kb] Edited by atylotus on 24-05-2012 10:34 |
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