''Agapetus'' is a genus of little black

caddisflies The caddisflies (order Trichoptera) are a group of insects with aquatic larvae and terrestrial adults. There are approximately 14,500 described species, most of which can be divided into the suborders Integripalpia and Annulipalpia on the basis ...

of the family

Glossosomatidae The Glossosomatidae are a family of the class Insecta and order Trichoptera.The family contains 23 genera in three subfamilies. In the US alone, there are 76 spp. in 6 different genera.Merritt, RW, Cummins, KW, Berg MB. (2008). An Introduction to ...

. There are at least 210 described species in ''Agapetus''. Larvae of ''Agapetus'' could be confused with '' Protoptila'' (another Glossosomatidae), but are readily distinguished by the presence of 2 mesonotal

sclerite A sclerite (Greek language, Greek , ', meaning "hardness, hard") is a hardened body part. In various branches of biology the term is applied to various structures, but not as a rule to vertebrate anatomical features such as bones and teeth. Instea ...

s instead of 3. There have been few larval-adult associations of the ''Agapetus'' spp. (7 of 30), so in areas with multiple species, adults or mature pupae are needed for species level identification. The saddle-type rock cases for larval ''Agapetus'' usually have larger rocks along the edge of the case. The

type species In International_Code_of_Zoological_Nomenclature, zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the spe ...

for ''Agapetus'' is '' Agapetus fuscipes'' J. Curtis.

References

Glossosomatidae {{trichoptera-stub

See also

References