The Life History of Panorpa nuptialis (Mecoptera: Panorpidae)1

Functional morphology of the larval mouthparts of Panorpodidae compared with Bittacidae and Panorpidae (Insecta: Mecoptera)

“…According to previous studies, the larvae are predacious in Nannochoristidae, feeding on small aquatic organisms (Beutel et al 2009); phytophagous in Boreidae, feeding on/ boring in moss tissues (Cooper 1974;Russell 1982); and saprophagous in most other families, consuming dead arthropods or decaying organic matters (Byers 1963(Byers , 1987(Byers , 1991Tan and Hua 2008;Cai and Hua 2009;Jiang and Hua 2013). Based on our present investigation, the diets of saprophagous larvae in Mecoptera are more diverse than known before.…”

Embryonic development of the scorpionfly Panorpa emarginata Cheng with special reference to external morphology (Mecoptera: Panorpidae)

“…Yie (1951) considered that the abdomen consists of 10 segments. The last part of the abdomen, the anal fork, was regarded as the eleventh segment by Byers (1963) in the scorpionfly Panorpa nuptialis and by Russell (1982) in the snow scorpionfly Caurinus dectes, while the fourbranched retractile anal fork was considered to belong to the tenth (and the last) abdominal segment (Miyake, 1912). In his comprehensive investigation on the embryological development of the Mecoptera, Suzuki (1990) also failed to recognize the presence of the eleventh abdominal segment.…”

Morphological comparison of the larvae of Panorpa obtusa Cheng and Neopanorpa lui Chou & Ran (Mecoptera: Panorpidae)

“…The saprophagous larvae of Panorpidae are also of the eruciform type and possess distinct annulated processes on the terga of the first ten abdominal segments (Miyaké, 1912;Yie, 1951;Byers, 1963;Mampe and Neunzig, 1965;Cai and Hua, 2009a;Chen and Hua, 2011;Jiang and Hua, 2013;Ma et al, 2014). However, why they possess such a peculiar character has not been well elucidated so far.…”

“…Several larvae of Panorpidae have been studied using light microscopy, including the European species Panorpa communis L. (Brauer, 1863;Steiner, 1930;Grell, 1938;Bierbrodt, 1942), the Japanese species P. japonica Thunberg (Miyaké, 1912), the North American P. nuptialis Gerstaecker (Byers, 1963) and 13 other species (Mampe and Neunzig, 1965;Boese, 1973), and eleven Taiwanese species of Panorpa Linnaeus and Neopanorpa Weele (Yie, 1951). Recently, larvae of several Chinese species of Panorpidae are described in detail using scanning electron microscopy (Cai and Hua, 2009a;Chen and Hua, 2011;Jiang and Hua, 2013;Ma et al, 2014).…”