1976] 
Henry — Larval Owlflies 
3 
lent study remains unpublished, with only small parts appearing in 
abbreviated form in his 1970 paper on fossil neuropteran larvae. 
A significantly larger number of authors have concerned them- 
selves with evaluating the evolutionary relationships within and 
among neuropteran families through analysis of adult morphology 
and wing venation. The most important works of this type include 
the broad-based studies of Tillyard (1916, 1926), Adams (1958) 
and Shepard (1967) and the ascalaphid monographs of McLachlan 
(1871), Weele (1908), Navas (1913) and Orfila (1949). Papers of 
more limited scope on the immatures of particular ascalaphid spe- 
cies will be discussed in the concluding section of this study. 
It is my intention eventually to re-assess the evolutionary pat- 
terns within the family Ascalaphidae, based upon morphological, 
behavioral, and life-cycle information pertaining to the immature 
stages of as many species as possible. Work toward this end was 
initiated in a comparative study of eggs, egg barriers (repagula) 
and early larval habits of two North American owlflies, Ululodes 
mexicana (McLachlan) and Ascaloptynx furciger (McLachlan), 
representing both ascalaphid subfamilies (Henry, 1972). The pur- 
poses of the present paper are (a) to provide formal generic and 
specific descriptions of the larvae of the above-named species, 
(b) to summarize key morphological differences between them 
and among other described forms, and (c) to suggest a tentative 
list of evolutionarily significant larval characters defining the as- 
calaphid subfamilies. The description of Ascaloptynx furciger is 
particuarly useful as the first, to my knowledge, published descrip- 
tion of a neuroptyngine (entire-eyed) owlfly larva. 
Papers on the behavior and life history of Ululodes mexicana and 
Ascaloptynx furciger are in preparation. 
Acknowledgements 
Much of the larval material assembled for this study was collected 
while I was a graduate student at Harvard University, Cambridge, 
Massachusetts. Collecting trips were financed by a three-year 
National Science Foundation Pre-Doctoral Fellowship, a Harvard 
University Richmond Fellowship, and grants from the Committee 
on Evolutionary Biology (NSF Grant GB 27911, Reed Rollins, 
Harvard University, Principal Investigator). Later trips to examine 
material in European museums and to collect living ascalaphid 
larvae from Europe were arranged through an NSF Institutional 
Grant at The George Washington University, Washington, D.C. 
