Proceedings of 
the United States 
National Museum 
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION +- WASHINGTON, D.C. 
Volume 125 1968 Number 3665 
BREDIN-ARCHBOLD-SMITHSONIAN 
BIOLOGICAL SURVEY OF DOMINICA * 
9. The Trichoptera (Caddisflies) of the Lesser Antilles 
By Oliver S. Flint, Jr. 
Curator, Division of Neuropteroids 
The Trichoptera or caddisflies are one of the panorpoid orders 
of insects closely related to the Mecoptera and Lepidoptera. The 
adults are quite mothlike in appearance, but their wings are generally 
covered with hairs rather than scales as in the Lepidoptera. They are 
holometabolous with their larval and pupal stages aquatic or, in a 
few cases, subaquatic or terrestrial. The larvae are most frequently 
noticed because of their habit of constructing some sort of shelter, 
which in certain families is a basically tubular case that encloses most 
of the body and that is carried around by the larvae as they wander 
over the substrate. The larvae of other families construct silken retreats 
that are fixed to the substrate and that serve to trap food particles 
from the flowing water. 
The trichopterous fauna of the Lesser Antilles has been almost 
completely ignored in the past by systematists. Polycentropus insularis 
Banks, 1938, from Grenada, is the only species described from these 
1See list at end of paper. Other faunal studies in this series will appear in 
“Smithsonian Contributions to Zoology.’’ A companion series on the flora appears 
in ‘‘Contributions from the United States National Herbarium” and ‘‘Smithsonian 
Contributions to Botany.” 
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