Immature Stages of the Marine Fly, Hypocharassus Pruinosus Wh., with a Review of the Biology of Immature Dolichopodidae

Smith, Marion

An adult female and several broken pupae of the marine dolichopodid fly, Hypocharassus pruinosus Wheeler, were brought to this laboratory from Cape Cod in 1945 by Dr. Charles F. Fraker of this university. In 1948, several additional pupae and the remains of their sand cocoons, two unbroken cocoons, and a single mature larva were collected on the same beach by Marc Sagan and James Baird, students in the department. In 1949 and 1950, Mrs. Frank Bryant of Weymouth, Mass., found cocoons, larvae, and pupae of this species, also on the Cape, and sent them to several museums and specialists for identification. The sand cocoons could not be identified, although Dr. William F. Clapp of Duxbury, Mass., reported finding them on the beach at Great Island, near South Yarmouth, on the Cape. It was not until after she sent larvae and pupae to the National Museum in Washington that the cases were recognized as insect structures, and determined by Dr. W. W. Wirth as cocoons of an unknown species of Dolichopodidae. Since little has been reported on the biology of this rather uncommon fly, and since relatively few insects are marine in habitat, it seems worthwhile to record the observations of these collectors, and to describe the present material.

Immature Stages of the Marine Fly, Hypocharassus Pruinosus Wh., with a Review of the Biology of Immature Dolichopodidae

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