Kokiriidae is a

family Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ...

insect Insects (from Latin ') are pancrustacean hexapod invertebrates of the class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body ( head, thorax and abdomen), three ...

in the order

Trichoptera 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 ...

. It was discovered in 1964 and is found in Australia,

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

, New Caledonia, and

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

. It consists of fifteen species and six genera.

History

It was originally erected in 1964 as the subfamily of Kokiriinae and discovered the species ''Kokiria miharo'', from

, but was soon reclassified as a family in 1967 by H. H. Ross and added the

an species, ''Rhynchopsyche fusca'', to the new family. Arturs Neboiss described the Australian species ''Tanjistomella verna'' and the New Caledonian genus ''Mecynostomella'' in 1974. In the same year, he described two other Australian genera, ''Taskiria'' and ''Taskiropsyche''. O.S. Flint Jr. considered the species ''Rhynchopsyche fusca'' to be a junior synonym of the species ''Pangullia faziana''.Flint, p. 5., pp. 45–68. K.A. Johanson revised the genera, ''Mecynostomella'', which increased the family size to fifteen species and six genera.Johanson, pp. 1–24, p. 270.

Larvae

The

larva A larva (; plural larvae ) is a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into adults. Animals with indirect development such as insects, amphibians, or cnidarians typically have a larval phase of their life cycle. ...

e are predatory and live on the small, sandy banks of streams and

river A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases, a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of w ...

s. The larvae cases are made from

sand Sand is a granular material composed of finely divided mineral particles. Sand has various compositions but is defined by its grain size. Sand grains are smaller than gravel and coarser than silt. Sand can also refer to a textural class o ...

and are depressed and slightly flanged around the edge of the case.

References

Bibliography

* Flint, O.S. Jr. (1967) ''Trichoptera collected by Prof. J. Illies in the Chilean subregion''. Beiträge zur Neotropischen Fauna * Johanson, K.A. (2003b) ''Revision of New Caledonian genus Mecynostomella (Trichoptera, Kokiriidae)''. Zootaxa. * Neboiss, A. (1974) ''Additions to the family Kokiriidae'' (Trichoptera). Victorian Naturalist. * Ross, H.H. (1967) ''The evolution and past dispersal of the Trichoptera''. Annual Review of Entomology. {{Taxonbar, from=Q2900068 Trichoptera families