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DALCERIDAE. By Dr. Herbert Sick. 
Family: Dalceridae. 
By Dr. Herbert Sick. 
This familiy established by Dyar is closely allied to the Limacodidae. It ought to have been placed 
right after them, but it was omitted by mistake and is now appended here. It is a small family of mostly uni- 
coloured yellow or whitish species occurring almost only in the neotropical faunistic region, very few species 
advancing also to the North American region. They are species with roundish broad wings, short pectinated 
antennae which are less strong in the $. Palpi small, proboscis rudimentary or absent. A few species bear tufts 
of scale-hairs on the antennae, particularly conspicuous in Dalcera cibrasa whose antennae are covered with 
rows of longitudinally arranged white scales which, however, are very loosely attached and fall off rather easily. 
They seem to be scent-organs occurring in both sexes. 
The biology is known in but few species. The larva of Acraga flava (according to Burmeister 1878) is almost 
‘'as long as a thumb", green and covered with several rows of tubercles which are gelatinous, colourless trans¬ 
parent and easily fall off on being touched. The larva of Acraga moorei (according to Jones 1882) is diaphanous 
white as if it were of • Venetian glass". The claspers are absent and only indicated by slight swellings of the 
skin. The larvae creep along like snails. The pupa of A. flava is described to be thin and transparent, the cases 
of the wings and other appendages of the body are half free. Moreover, according to Hopp, the skin of the larva 
is almost without any elasticity, because the exterior chitinous stratum is not, or only slightly, developed. For 
this reason, the moult is also quite different from that of the other lepidoptera. The latter periodically cast 
the whole chitinous outside skeleton, whereas the Dalcerid larva moults only partly, the skin being thrust off 
by and by from one segment after the other, starting from the tubercles — 6 on each segment. Even the seg¬ 
ments moult again in single sections. The tubercles shine through the cuticula shortly after the moult like small 
white discs, projecting shortly before it like tiny knobs. In the last stage of the moult, the tubercle peels off 
from the body and falls off with the part of the cuticula belonging to it. In Acraga flava four tubercles are 
coherent on one cuticular plate which is then thrust off jointly. Since one or several tubercles with their cuti- 
cular plate fall off from one segment or another, the larva is moulting continuously. As to the moult of the 
head or of the anal parts, no observations are known so far, but the process of moulting is presumably the same 
and as normal here as in the other lepidoptera. Further detailed observations concerning the larvae have been 
made by Dyar (Ins. Insc. Mens., Vol. XIII, 1925, p. 44 — 46), being the completest hitherto known. Dyar 
obtained larvae of Acraga coa from Payo Obispo, Quintana Roo, Mexico, defoliating trees in a park. The larvae 
are whitish ice-coloured, dotted with crimson tubercles and small black markings, smooth, with a thick trans¬ 
parent gelatinous skin. Schaits observed the larvae while collecting them at night; in the light of the lamp 
they looked like big drops of water. The head of this larva is round and only chitinized in its lower part, the 
rest included in the thorax. The oral part is well developed, with a triangular leaf-shaped spinning wart. The 
prothorax can be withdrawn into the third segment. Each segment bears round papillary tubercles. The large 
and round stigmata are situate just above the edge of the ventrum. The pupa rests in a cocoon which is simpler 
than that of the himacodidae and even that of the Megalopygidae. The cocoon is usually fixed to the upper 
surface of leaves, or between leaves. 
1. Genus : Dalcera H.-ScMff. 
Body slender, palpi thin, hardly projecting beyond the head, the second joint much longer than the 
first, the third small and pointed. Abdomen not projecting beyond the hindwings. Legs thin, wings broad, 
convex in front, rounded at the apices, rather oblique at the distal margin. Three interior veins, the second 
equidistant from the first and third. 
