larval & pupal exuviae

[Doug Yanega]

Maybe it's time to start a new thread (inspired by recent emergences in my
lab, as spring has sprung here)...

Since I publish mostly on bees and wasps, I'm not all that familiar with
the lep literature, so forgive me if the following is too naive - but now
that I'm rearing numbers of larvae here in Brazil, and saving up everything
left behind in the rearing process, I'm curious as to whether these things
(larval & pupal exuviae, cocoons) are (1) regularly saved and kept with
reared adults, and (2) regularly *described* in detail sufficient for use
in taxonomic revisions? If the answer to either is "NO", then I'm really
curious as to why not, and whether it's a trivial thing to encourage the
practice.
        From what (relatively) little I've got here already, it's evident
that there are numerous potentially diagnostic and phylogenetically
informative features of these immature stages that are still visible on
exuviae - but have people really exploited this information? I have a few
papers (such as Jim Miller's work on Dioptines) which include a LOT of
larval and pupal information, but have no idea how extensive this practice
is, even for well-known taxa. Just for example, with all those large,
flashy, commonly raised and traded N American Saturniids, are there keys or
phylogenies using diagnostic features of the pupae? Other publications,
like DeVries' book on Costa Rican butterflies, give features and
illustrations of larvae and pupae (where known), but this is by no means
exhaustive coverage or presentation, nor arranged such that one could take
a Costa Rican butterfly larva/pupa and easily ID it. But of any insect
group, leps would have to be the prime candidate for immature-centered
studies and publications. Admittedly, part of the reason I ask is selfish -
many, many of my larvae never pupate, and many pupae never reach adulthood,
and it would be nice to know what the heck they *would* have been, so I can
*do* something with the hostplant and parasite records.
        A related question - I know people used to take larvae and
"inflate" them, so they could be mounted in a nice way and pinned into a
collection dry with the adults. Has anyone ever tried inflating *exuviae*,
or is this a hopeless cause?

Anyway, something a little lighter to ponder than the collecting debate...

Peace,

Doug Yanega    Depto. de Biologia Geral, Instituto de Ciencias Biologicas,
Univ. Fed. de Minas Gerais, Cx.P. 486, 30.161-970 Belo Horizonte, MG   BRAZIL
phone: 031-448-1223, fax: 031-44-5481  (from U.S., prefix 011-55)
                  http://www.icb.ufmg.br/~dyanega/
  "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
        is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82