Arachnologische Mitteilungen 55

32 G. Barrantes, L. Segura-Hernández, D. Solano-Brenes & P. Hanson During the first two stages, the larva only grew in size, with no obvious morphological changes (Fig. 2b).During this period the larva sometimes appeared to feed on the spider’ hemolymph: the larva’s mouth contacted the spider’s cuticle, and peristaltic contractions moved posteriorly in the anterior section of the larva’s body. The third stage larva had a dorsal tubercle with hooklets on each of eight body segments (Fig. 2c). During this stage the larva killed the spider, grasped the web with its dorsal tubercles, and then spent nearly two days sucking out the contents of the spider; upon completion of feeding it dislod- ged the spider’s carcass and then began cocoon construction (Tab. 1). Cocoon construction. We video-recorded portions of co- coon construction by two larvae. In both cases the larva const- ructed the cocoon in the centre of the orb-web, the hub, whe- re the larva had killed and consumed the spider. Construction began with the larva hanging by its hooklets to threads of the cocoon web (Fig. 3a). With silk threads produced from the larva’s mouth, it first constructed a fluffy mass of silk around its posterior half (Fig. 3b). During this phase we observed the larva connecting some threads to the cocoon web (Fig. 3c-d). After several hours of continuous spinning, the larva had gradually constructed a fluffy mass of silk that encased the en- tire larva (Fig. 3). On several occasions, we observed the larva move down to reach the bottom of the cocoon and continue adding silk threads to the interior of the cocoon (Fig. 3e), so that the cocoon wall became denser over time (Fig. 3f ). During spinning, the larva connected the threads in sequence and the next connection point was always near the previous one. The larva commonly began by connecting threads to the top of the cocoon and then in a sequence of connecting points, moved its head while curling its body about its abdo- minal section, to nearly reach the bottom of the cocoon (Fig. Fig. 2: Egg and different larval stages. a. Egg recently attached to the spider’s opisthosoma. b. First instar larva recently emerged from the egg. c. Second instar larva. d. Third instar larva feeding on the recently killed spider; details of the dorsal hooklets are visible in the inset Tab. 1: Days spent in each developmental stage by two larvae of the pa- rasitoid wasp Hymenoepimecis heidyae on its host spider Kapogea cyrto- phoroides . Stage Days Egg 3 First instar larva 3 Second instar larva 4 Third instar larva 2 Cocoon construction 2 Pupa 15 Total 29