OnBraula coecaNitsch and its affinities

Abstract

The developmental stages ofBraula coecaare described. The larva is an inquiline living in a tubular burrow which it makes by mining on the inner side of the capping of the honey cells in the comb of the hive bee. It is meta-pneustic and bears characteristic anterior and posterior girdles of sensoria.The pupa is apparently unique among Cyclorrhapha in that it is enclosed within the unmodified cuticle of the 3rd instar larva, no puparium being formed. It is suggested that this feature is a degenerative change owing to the cessation of a particular phase of hormone activity.The similarity of form and structure shown by the larvae ofBraulaand of the Chamaemyiidae (Ochthiphilidae) is indicative of a fundamentally close relationship. Their imagines on the other hand have undergone widely divergent evolution.