2 
Psyche 
[March 
meleontoid insects are cryptic in habits and coloration and often 
difficult to rear to adulthood. For these reasons, few have been 
reliably associated with adult forms, so taxonomic and phylogenetic 
studies have necessarily been based primarily upon the morphology 
of preserved imagos. In the myrmeleontoid family Ascalaphidae, 
larval-adult associations have been achieved for only five or 
possibly six of 65 described genera (MacLeod, 1970). Addition- 
ally, all of these published associations are within one of the two 
ascalaphid subfamilies, the Ascalaphinae; no neuroptyngine 
(=ascaloptyngine) larva has been formally described, despite the 
fact that nearly one third of ascalaphid genera are contained in the 
latter subfamily (Weele. 1908). 
Only a few authors have made serious attempts to bring biological 
information about the immatures to bear upon the problems of 
phylogeny within the Neuroptera in general and Ascalaphidae in 
particular. The first of these was Hagen (1873), who described six- 
teen larval “types” within the Ascalaphidae and correctly assessed 
the taxonomic importance of numerous larval characters, but failed 
to establish strong evidence for larval-adult relationship in most 
cases. Navas (1914, 1915), like Hagen, stressed the importance of 
such larval features as the number and distribution of lateral ab- 
dominal scoli (extensions), particularly in separating the split-eyed 
(Ascalaphinae) from the entire-eyed (Neuroptynginae) ascalaphid 
subfamilies. However, his papers are crudely illustrated and suffer 
from the same (if not more) uncertainty of larval identity as do 
Hagen’s; it is by no means certain or even likely that his assignment 
of several larvae to the subfamily Neuroptynginae is correct. Withy- 
combe’s work (1925) is far more ambitious, important, and accurate, 
assembling a large body of behavioral, physiological and morpho- 
logical data on immature Neuroptera. Since he was not seeking 
evolutionary relationships within families like the Ascalaphidae 
but rather among all neuropteran families, Withycombe did not 
usually require or attempt species-level identifications. Finally, 
MacLeod (1964) produced a thorough, well-reasoned and superbly 
illustrated work on Neuroptera of a scope similar to that of Withy- 
combe’s but emphasizing comparative morphology of the larval 
head capsule rather than behavior and physiology. This is the first 
work to figure in detail the head capsule of an ascalaphid larva of the 
genus Ululodes [ U. quadrimaculat a (Say)] and to document, by rear- 
an adult association of a neuroptyngine ascalaphid larva [Ascalop- 
tynx appendiculatus (Fabricius)]. Unfortunately, MacLeod’s excel- 
