THE KANSAS UNIVERSITY 



SCIENCE BULLETIN 



Vol. XIV. I October, 1922. [No. 20. 



Some Notes on the Biology of Curicta* from Texas. 



BY GRACE OLIVE WILEY. 



BEHAVIOR OF ADULTS AND NYMPHS OF CURICTA. 



I COLLECTED several pairs of adult Curicta and placed them all 

 in one glass to take home alive. When I reached home most of 

 them were mating. These were removed and placed in separate 

 glasses, and remained paired for several hours. 



In mating, the male takes a position to one side of the female, and 

 usually to the right. If to the right, he hooks his left anterior tarsus 

 over her head; if to the left, the right fore tarsus is used. 



Both nymphs and adults seem fond of getting out of the water 

 and lying close to the ground, where they are hardly discernible. I 

 have found adults almost a foot from the water's edge, in tangled 

 plant roots and under rotten pieces of wood. Search for eggs laid 

 in nature provided fruitless. One pair was mating. I am half in- 

 clined to believe the eggs are laid in soft mud.f 



The nymphs are very agreeable, in that they do not feed upon 

 others of their kind, even when hungry. They like small notonec- 

 tids, corixids, small carabids, fresh-water shrimp, and such. They 

 refused small minnows, however. It is not uncommon to see three 

 feeding quietly on one shrimp, or two feeding on one small beetle. 

 They are very fond of mosquito larvae. 



EGGS. 



Size. About 1.75 mm. long; width a trifle more than .75 mm.; diameter of 

 crown a little less than % mm. Rosette of filaments at tip, numbering 15; 

 length of filaments almost 1 mm. 



* Curicta drakei Hungerford. 



t Have now found the eggs deposited in the tissue of dead plant stems with only the- 

 crown of filaments visible. 



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