2 
Psyche 
[March-June 
collecting sites in question is furciger; (3) males and females of 
Ascaloptynx furciger were captured in fair abundance in the same 
areas and at the same time of year that eggs and young larvae were 
collected; (4) dissections of gravid A. furciger females revealed 
eggs and egg-attendants (see text) that were in every respect identical 
to field-laid eggs that yielded Ascaloptynx larvae. 
The first student of ascalaphid life-history was the Reverend L. 
Guilding, whose 1827 account of the various life stages of Ululodes 
macleayana (Guilding)* from St. Vincent’s Island in the West 
Indies remains one of the best such studies ever published. In de- 
scribing the eggs of this species, he noted the presence of curious 
rod-shaped structures encircling the twig beneath the egg-mass. He 
called these egg-attendants “repagula,”** meaning “barriers,” be- 
cause he believed that they prevented ants and other predators from 
approaching and destroying the eggs and newly hatched larvae ; con- 
versely, he felt that the repagula discouraged the larvae from leaving 
their twig “until they have acquired strength to resist . . . [their] 
enemies.” McClendon (1901) also noted repagula accompanying 
the eggs of Ululodes hyalina (Latreille) [believed by MacLeod 
(1964) to be Ululodes senex (Burmeister) ] from Texas; he con- 
firmed Guilding’s description of these structures and concluded from 
his dissections of gravid female ascalaphids (unfortunately unillus- 
trated) that certain ovarioles (“tubercles”) were specialized for the 
production of repagula. Thus it was shown that repagula were in 
fact abortive eggs. Seventy years later, New (1971), apparently 
overlooking the papers of Guilding and McClendon, re-introduced 
the concept of ovariolar dimorphism in his cursory study of the eggs 
and repagula of eight species of Ascalaphidae from central Brazil. 
New’s paper is important, nonetheless, for two reasons: first, it 
proved that repagula-formation is not unique to the genus Ululodes 
but is also found in the closely-allied genera Colohopterus Rambur, 
Ascalorphne Banks and Cordulecerus Rambur, and in the neuro- 
ptyngine genera By as Rambur and Episperches Gerstaecker; secondly, 
it suggested that the repagula of neuroptyngine species are funda- 
mentally different in form from those of ascalaphine species — the 
former type more nearly resembling fertile eggs than the latter type. 
The functional significance of repagula has not been investigated. 
Most authors (Imms, 1957, for example) have accepted Guilding’s 
“ant guard” view. New (1971) intimates that repagula and eggs 
*Guilding’s name for this species was Ascalaphus macleayanus. 
**singular = repagulum. 
