Pachylia ficus Stoll 1782

General comments: 

This information is based an ongoing project dedicated to the inventory and dissemination of information on lepidopteran larvae, their host plants, and their parasitoids in a Costa Rican tropical wet forest and an Ecuadorian montane cloud forest.

N=16 rearings as of 2012, 7 eclosed, 7 were parasitized and 2 died.

Larval morphology and behavior: 

The larvae of this species exhibit two color morphs: a blue-green color morph and a lich-colored morph.

During emergence and pupation of parasitoids, the larvae of this species remaines still and proceeds to move away and die elsewhere once the parasitods have completed their mass pupation.

Distribution: 

Collected in Heredia Province, Costa Rica.

Foodplant Associations: 

Moraceae: Ficus insipida, Ficus colubrinae, Ficus sp., Castilla elastica, Brosimum lactescens

Cecropiaceae: Cecropia obtusifolia

Parasitoid Associations: 

Tachinidae: Unknown spp. (N=2)

Braconidae: Cotesia sp. (N=4). These parasitoids emerge in the hundreds or thousands simulataneously and spin a their cocoons in such a way that they end up in a large mass.

Eulophidae: Unknown sp. (N=1) , this Eulophid hyperparasitized a Braconidae larvae inside the larval host. The Eulophids attack the Cotesia sp., while they are spinning their cocoons. Over 50 Eulophid pupae emerged from the host.

Scratchpads developed and conceived by (alphabetical): Ed Baker, Katherine Bouton Alice Heaton Dimitris Koureas, Laurence Livermore, Dave Roberts, Simon Rycroft, Ben Scott, Vince Smith