COSSIDAE. General Topics. By Dr. A. Seitz. 
1263 
Family: Cossidae. 
Considering the Cossidae and their distribution over the Earth in general we must bear in mind that 
frequently species have been ranged in this family, the propinquity of which has not yet been fully proved. 
The peculiar life-habits of the larvae of this family in the interior of plants — especially of wood-plants — has 
produced quite a number of exterior features which may easily mislead the systematizer, wherever they are 
not distinctly exhibited as convergencies. Not even the delimitation of the family had thus far been fixed, 
and the insertion of the Arbelidae of America ( Lepidarbelidae ) in the Cossidae has only at this place been really 
carried through, although it had been practically employed long ago in statistic works (Rebel). 
Towards the end of the last century, Kibby compiled in his Catalogue abdut 218 species which are 
almost equally divided upon the four large faunae. Somewhat later, Rebel enumerated already twice as many 
(440) species, and to-day 70 more species have been superadded to this total number. Yet the rather equable 
distribution over the Earth has remained, since each of the three faunae of the Old World harbours about 100 
species (the Palaearctic and Ethiopian Regions somewhat less, the Indo-Australian Region somewhat more), 
only the American Region holds twice as many species, about 200. 
The life-conditions of the Cossidae are such as allow them to occur nearly on the whole of the Earth, 
only smaller islands being often without any, especially also New Zealand which is unintelligibly poor in Macro- 
lepidoptera. 
The bitterest enemy of the Cossidae as imago, at least in South America, is the bat. As we mentioned 
already in Vol. XIV, the imagines are attracted to the light from great distances, whizzing round the lamps 
in a straight, somewhat unwieldy flight, while the bats spread mighty havoc among them. I could observe this 
especially in the larger Langsdorfia in Brazil and was struck by this fact all the more since I never noticed that 
the Zeuzera pyrina which are indigenous to the palaearctic region (but imported into America) were pursued 
by bats. The CS °f Zeuzera pyrina mostly dashed upon the flame, and after having hit against the window- 
panes with their heads, they dropped straightway to the ground. There they remained lying motionless on 
their backs, with their wings closely appressed, and sometimes numbers of them were lying about even in the 
morning, similarly as if cigarette-ends had been thrown away. As they were neither attacked by the large panther- 
toads, which search the ground beneath the lanterns at night in North Africa, it seems that certain species are 
protected by pungent or perhaps obnoxious saps, which would also explain the experience made in Europe 
with chickens despising the Zeuzera pyrina that were thrown to them among other moths which they greedily 
devoured. The American Cossidae are rarely met with excejit in the lamp-light, because many species are well 
protected by their bark-like colouring, and besides they live rather well hidden. The smaller forms of the steppes 
even seem to hide beneath or close to the soil, for even those species which, like the Argentine Langsdorfia am- 
bigua, are whirling around the lamp in tremendous swarms and which must consequently occur in immense 
numbers of individuals, are hardly ever or never met with in the daytime. In searching for larvae at night 
with a lantern, the imagines of the genus Holcocents , which are hardly ever come upon in daylight, can be ob¬ 
served creeping up stalks and blades projecting beyond the scanty sward of the steppe; consequently, they 
must also have their hiding-places on the soil. 
Regarding the life-history of the American Cossidae, we are only informed to some extent about the 
nearctic species. They do not differ in this from those of other faunae. The duration of life of the larva is very 
long as in most of the wood-eating insects; presumably owing to the lignified parts of the plants being not very 
nutritious, and because of the boring which they are forced to do being very wearisome. On the one hand, it 
is the long duration of this time of development, during which the larvae are exposed to all kinds of dangers, 
on the other hand the great number of foes living on the invariably fat larvae of the woodborers, that the number 
of individuals reaching puberty is greatly reduced in spite of their concealed habits. The wood-larvae are enorm¬ 
ously decimated by termites and rapacious beetles inside the passages, by wood-peckers and Hymenoptera 
