146 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. I4I 



"Rhicnoda" sp., Costa Rica (Picado, 1913). This genus is now 

 recognized as not being in the New World fauna. Probably the 

 specimen was a species of Epilampra or Hyporhicnoda as suggested 

 by Gurney (personal communication, 1959) and confirmed by Rehn 

 (p.c, 1959). 



Cockroaches, Costa Rica (Calvert, 1910) : Cockroaches were said 

 to be common in bromeliads on the moist Atlantic slope. 



Family LILIACEAE 



Yucca elata Engelman 



Associate. — Latiblattella lucifrons, Arizona (Ball et al., 1942). 



Easter lilies 

 Associate. — Pycnoscehis surinamensis, Connecticut (Zappe, 1918). 



Family MUSACEAE 

 Bananas 



Cockroaches have been captured in bunches of bananas, in bracts 

 of banana flowers, under banana leaves, and burrowing in rotten 

 banana stalks. Although many of the species associated with bananas 

 are indigenous to the banana-growing areas of the American Tropics, 

 most of the specimens cited below were captured elsewhere as ad- 

 ventitious insects that had been imported with the fruit. It is obvious 

 that many of these insects must have been closely associated with 

 bananas on the plantations, where, undoubtedly, the growing plants 

 provided attractive ecological niches. Bunting (1956) deduced, from 

 the presence of healthy cockroaches on bananas allegedly sprayed with 

 copper arsenate, that the insects did not feed on stems or fruit but hid 

 among the bananas and foraged elsewhere ; however, certain reports 

 are of cockroaches actually feeding on bananas. Some of the records 

 cited by Hebard (191 7) were compiled from earlier reports not all 

 of which we have seen. Numbers in parentheses following certain 

 citations indicate the number of times the association had been ob- 

 served. Known or suspected adventive material is so indicated. 



Aglaopteryx diaphana, Jamaica (Rehn and Hebard, 1927) : Found 

 in bracts of banana blossoms. England (Bunting, 1955) : Adventive, 

 on bananas from Dominica. 



Aglaopteryx vegeta, Finland (Princis, 1947) : Adventive, in banana 

 box. 



Amasonina emarginata, Trinidad (Princis and Kevan, 1955) : In 

 banana bunch. 



