Plant-Insect Ecosystems
10-Minute Paper
Yume Imada
PhD
Ehime University
Matsuyama, Ehime, Japan
Body color, patterns, and structures play an important role in insect camouflage. Larvae of the Cylindrotominae crane-flies (Diptera: Cylindrotomidae) are obligate moss-feeders and resemble mosses by their body color, patterns, and numerous fleshy projections covering their body surfaces. My research group has studied the ecomorphology of the cylindrotomine larvae to address how the biology (host-plant use) is related to the larval morphology (e.g., structure and color). Firstly, we have revealed that the arrangement and shape of the fleshy processes differ among species, and the internal structure and locomotion have suggested that the lateral lobes may function to stabilize the body and assist locomotion. Secondly, our quantitative analysis of larval body color has revealed that the range of variation in body color varies among species. Notably, they can immediately change the body color in accordance with the background color. Such plasticity in body color may be caused by transmitting the background through the translucent cuticle. The surface structure and translucency of the cuticle in the cylindrotomines presumably contribute to camouflaging the mosses by edge diffusion. The example of larval cylindrotomines provides insight into the ecological function of the insect cuticle.