Pupae vs. Chrysalis

[Kenelm Philip]

>    The way I learned it over 50 years ago -
> - ovum, larva, pupa, and imago are the proper words for the ontogenic
> instars of holometabolous insects.
> - egg, caterpillar, chrysalis (with or without a cocoon), and adult are
> the colloquial words for the life stages of insects with complete
> metamorphosis.

	I find this odd on two counts:

1) 'Instar' is the "stage of an insect between successive moults, the first
instar being the stage between hatching and the first moult" (Borrer &
DeLong, glossary). I have never seen 'instar' applied to the 4 stages of
a holometabolous insect.

2) 'Caterpillar' as the colloquial word for a dipteran maggot, coleopteran
grub, etc. is something I have never come across. Same with 'chrysalis'
for the pupa of any non-lepidopterous insect.

	That's certainly not the way _I_ learned it over 50 years ago.  :-)

							Ken Philip
fnkwp at uaf.edu

P.S. I checked a number of my older books (late 1800s to early 1900s), and
all of them agree that 'chrysalis' applies only to butterflies (without
going into taxonomic minutiae as what is and what isn't a butterfly). So
whatever people are saying nowadays, the original use of the term was
not applied to moths (let alone other orders).




 
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