large aquatic lep cocoons in Brazil

[Roger C. KENDRICK]

James J. Kruse wrote in reply to  Sat, 4 Apr 1998, Doug Yanega:

> > Just had some students show me some remarkable cocoons they found on the
> > upper surfaces of rocks in some streams ..... exuviae looked to be about 12-15mm long.

> I showed this message to Eugenie Phillips (she worked on Pyralids at
> INBio) and she thought they were Pyralids.


This would fit the bill. The only aquatic moths I know of are Pyralidae,
specifically the subfamily Nymphulinae, most of whose species are
freshwater aquatics as larvae. In Hong Kong the predominant species
appear to be of the genus Aulacodes, although there are at least three
species of Paracymoriza [?spelling] (quite large, upto 25 mm wingspan).
In all, I have recorded something like a dozen species in the past year,
without specifically targetting (i.e. trapping very near to streams or
ponds for adults). My supervisor (a Trichoptera specialist) frequently
encounters Nymphulinae larvae whilst searching for caddisfly larvae, but
had assumed only one or two species were involved, so was a little
surprised when informed that at least a dozen have already been
recorded!

regards,

Roger. 
________________________________________________
Roger C. KENDRICK   B.Sc.(Hons.)
PhD student & Demonstrator, Dept of Ecology & Biodiversity
The University of Hong Kong
mailto:kendrick at hkusua.hku.hk
http://web.hku.hk/~kendrick/hkmoth.htm   « Hong Kong Moths »
http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/Canopy/1085/   « H.K. Lepidoptera
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