''Agapetus'' is a genus of little black

caddisflies The caddisflies, or order Trichoptera, are a group of insects with aquatic larvae and terrestrial adults. There are approximately 14,500 described species, most of which can be divided into the suborders Integripalpia and Annulipalpia on the b ...

of the family

Glossosomatidae The Glossosomatidae are a family of the class Insecta and order Trichoptera.The family contains 23 genera in three subfamilies. In the US alone, there are 76 spp. in 6 different genera.Merritt, RW, Cummins, KW, Berg MB. (2008). An Introduction to ...

. There are at least 210 described species in ''Agapetus''. Larvae of ''Agapetus'' could be confused with '' Protoptila'' (another Glossosomatidae), but are readily distinguished by the presence of 2 mesonotal

sclerite A sclerite (Greek , ', meaning "hard") is a hardened body part. In various branches of biology the term is applied to various structures, but not as a rule to vertebrate anatomical features such as bones and teeth. Instead it refers most commonly ...

s instead of 3. There have been few larval-adult associations of the ''Agapetus'' spp. (7 of 30), so in areas with multiple species, adults or mature pupae are needed for species level identification. The saddle-type rock cases for larval ''Agapetus'' usually have larger rocks along the edge of the case. The

type species In zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the species that contains the biological type specimen ...

for Agapetus is '' Agapetus fuscipes'' J. Curtis.

References

Glossosomatidae {{trichoptera-stub

See also

References