New Zealand Moths and Butterflies (Macro-Lepidoptera)Hudson, G. V. (George Vernon)
Science
New Zealand Moths and Butterflies (Macro-Lepidoptera)
Hudson, G. V. (George Vernon)
Lepidoptera -- New Zealand
The insect remains in this condition during the winter months. About
September the male pupa works its way down to the lower end of the case,
forces open the old aperture there situated, and projects the head and
thorax, the pupa being secured from falling by the spines on its posterior
segments, which retain a firm hold in the silk. Its anterior portion then
breaks open, and the moth makes its escape, clinging to the outside of its
old habitation, and drying its wings.
The perfect insect must be about from September till December, but I have
never then observed it. The only specimen I have seen was noticed flying
very rapidly in the street in Wellington, in July. I was at first unable to
tell what species it was, as it had a most unusual appearance on the wing,
but its subsequent near approach enabled me to ascertain for certain that
it was a specimen of this insect. In captivity I have also noticed the
extreme activity of the male when first emerged. Indeed this moth is so
vivacious, that it often happens, owing to the emergence usually taking
place very early in the morning, that specimens are more or less injured by
their efforts to escape, before they are discovered in the breeding cage.
This restless energy of the male is no doubt essential to the insect's
well-being, as the females, hidden away in their cases and incapable of any
movement, must of necessity be very hard to discover. The power of
locomotion lost in the one sex is thus doubled in the other. Considering
the protection {126}afforded this insect by the case, which it inhabits
during its preparatory stages, its enormous mortality from the attacks of a
parasitic dipteron (_Eurigaster marginatus_) is very remarkable. In this
connection the following analysis of 38 cases, gathered at random, may be
of interest:--
26 had parasites.
8 were dead.
2 contained eggs.
2 contained living pupæ, 1 male and 1 female respectively.
Amongst some of these parasites I once obtained a specimen, which was in
its turn infested by a secondary or hyper-parasite, belonging to the genus
_Pteromalus_, in the order Hymenoptera. Eighteen of these minute insects
emerged from a single pupa of _E. marginatus_. The method by which the
_Pteromalus_ introduces its eggs into the dipterous larva, which is in its
turn enclosed in a caterpillar, is not at present known to entomologists;
but it seems probable that the eggs of the hyper-parasite are either
deposited in the eggs of the dipterous insect, or else on the very young
larvæ, before they penetrate the skin of the caterpillar.[66]
Genus 2.--OROPHORA, Fereday.
"Ocelli present. Antennæ 2/3, in male moderately bi-pectinated
throughout. Labial palpi rudimentary, hairy. Abdomen densely hairy.
Fore-wings with veins 4 and 5 short-stalked, 7 and 8 out of 9. Hind-wings
with veins 4 and 5 stalked, parting-vein well defined, 8 connected by bar
with cell beyond middle, and additional vein (9) rising out of 8 before
bar."
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