__NOTOC__ Limnephilidae is a family of

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 ...

with about 100

genera Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family as used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In binomial nomenclature, the genus name forms the first part of the binomial s ...

. They belong to the main lineage of case-constructing caddisflies, the

Integripalpia The Integripalpia are a suborder of Trichoptera, the caddisflies. The name refers to the unringed nature of maxillary palp's terminal segment in the adults. Integripalpian larvae construct portable cases out of debris during the first larval inst ...

or tube-case caddisflies. The Limnephilidae is one of the most species-rich Trichoptera families of northern

temperate In geography, the temperate climates of Earth occur in the middle latitudes (approximately 23.5° to 66.5° N/S of the Equator), which span between the tropics and the polar regions of Earth. These zones generally have wider temperature ran ...

regions, but only a few are known from

tropical The tropics are the regions of Earth surrounding the equator, where the sun may shine directly overhead. This contrasts with the temperate or polar regions of Earth, where the Sun can never be directly overhead. This is because of Earth's ax ...

areas and the Southern Hemisphere. For this reason they are often known as northern caddisflies.

Description and ecology

The adults are usually brown in colour, often with narrow mottled or patterned forewings and much broader, transparent hindwings. The aquatic

larva A larva (; : larvae ) is a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into their next life stage. Animals with indirect development such as insects, some arachnids, amphibians, or cnidarians typically have a larval phase ...

e construct portable cases from a wide variety of

plant Plants are the eukaryotes that form the Kingdom (biology), kingdom Plantae; they are predominantly Photosynthesis, photosynthetic. This means that they obtain their energy from sunlight, using chloroplasts derived from endosymbiosis with c ...

and

mineral In geology and mineralogy, a mineral or mineral species is, broadly speaking, a solid substance with a fairly well-defined chemical composition and a specific crystal structure that occurs naturally in pure form.John P. Rafferty, ed. (2011): Mi ...

materials, sometimes even

snail A snail is a shelled gastropod. The name is most often applied to land snails, terrestrial molluscs, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod molluscs. However, the common name ''snail'' is also used for most of the members of the molluscan class Gas ...

shells. Cases of young larvae often looking completely different from those of larger

instar An instar (, from the Latin '' īnstar'' 'form, likeness') is a developmental stage of arthropods, such as insects, which occurs between each moult (''ecdysis'') until sexual maturity is reached. Arthropods must shed the exoskeleton in order to ...

s. Larvae tend to be eruciform (with a thickset head and

thorax The thorax (: thoraces or thoraxes) or chest is a part of the anatomy of mammals and other tetrapod animals located between the neck and the abdomen. In insects, crustaceans, and the extinct trilobites, the thorax is one of the three main di ...

), rather slow-moving, and usually feed by browsing

algae Algae ( , ; : alga ) is an informal term for any organisms of a large and diverse group of photosynthesis, photosynthetic organisms that are not plants, and includes species from multiple distinct clades. Such organisms range from unicellular ...

or scavenging animal remains. They

pupa A pupa (; : pupae) is the life stage of some insects undergoing transformation between immature and mature stages. Insects that go through a pupal stage are holometabolous: they go through four distinct stages in their life cycle, the stages th ...

te within the larval case, the pupa swimming to the surface before flying away as an adult. For most species the life cycle is completed within one year. The family includes one extraordinary aberrant genus, '' Enoicyla'', whose larvae are terrestrial, living among

moss Mosses are small, non-vascular plant, non-vascular flowerless plants in the taxonomic phylum, division Bryophyta (, ) ''sensu stricto''. Bryophyta (''sensu lato'', Wilhelm Philippe Schimper, Schimp. 1879) may also refer to the parent group bryo ...

and leaf litter. The females of ''Enoicyla'' have only vestigial wings and are flightless. File:Anabolia.nervosa.larva.jpg, Larval case of '' Anabolia nervosa'' File:Limnephilus.flavicornis.larva.jpg, Larval case of ''

Limnephilus flavicornis ''Limnephilus flavicornis'' is a species of caddisfly in the family Limnephilidae. Its larvae, which can be found in lakes, ponds and puddles, creates a case from organic materials as a method of camouflage Camouflage is the use of any ...

'' File:Limnephilus.stigma.larva.jpg, Larval case of '' Limnephilus stigma'' File:L7 Suvoljubatska reka 2 Glyphotaelius pellucidus.jpeg, Larval case of '' Glyphotaelius pellucidus''

Systematics

The Limnephilidae are divided among the four

subfamilies In biological classification, a subfamily (Latin: ', plural ') is an auxiliary (intermediate) taxonomic rank, next below family but more inclusive than genus. Standard nomenclature rules end botanical subfamily names with "-oideae", and zool ...

listed here (with some notable genera also given). A few genera are not presently assignable to subfamily. * Dicosmoecinae ** '' Ironoquia'' * Drusinae ** '' Drusus'' * Limnephilinae ** '' Anabolia'' ** '' Chaetopteryx'' ** '' Enoicyla'' ** '' Glyphotaelius'' ** ''

Limnephilus ''Limnephilus'' is a genus of caddisfly, caddisflies in the family Limnephilidae. There are over 180 species of ''Limnephilus'', described between 1824 and 1999. Several species of ''Limnephilus'' are endangered, including ''Limnephilus perpus ...

'' ** '' Parachiona'' ** '' Chilostigma'' * Pseudostenophylacinae ** '' Aplatyphylax'' ** '' Astenophylina'' ** '' Astratodina'' ** '' Phylostenax'' ** '' Pseudostenophylax'' * ''

Incertae sedis or is a term used for a taxonomy (biology), taxonomic group where its broader relationships are unknown or undefined. Alternatively, such groups are frequently referred to as "enigmatic taxa". In the system of open nomenclature, uncertainty ...

'' ** '' Allomyia'' ** '' Manophylax'' ** '' Moselyana'' ** '' Pedomoecus''

References

*Chinery, Michael ''Collins Guide to the Insects of Britain and Western Europe'' 1986 (Reprinted 1991)

External links

Family description
{{Authority control Trichoptera families Taxa named by Friedrich August Rudolph Kolenati Integripalpia