PROC. ENTOMOL. SOC. WASH. 94(4), 1992, pp. 556-558 EGG MORPHOLOGY OF DRACONIA RUSINA DRUCE FROM HONDURAS (LEPIDOPTERA: THYRIDIDAE) Steven Passoa and Bruce A. Steinly (SP) USDA/APHIS/PPQ, 8995 East Main Street, Bldg. 3, rm. 109, Reynoldsburg, Ohio 43068; (BAS) Illinois Natural History Survey, Center for Economic Entomology, 607 East Peabody Drive, Champaign, Illinois 61820. Abstract. —The egg and some first instar morphological features of Draconia rusina are given based on specimens collected in Honduras. This is the first record of D. rusina from Honduras and the second illustration of a Neotropical thyridid egg. Key Words: Draconia rusina, Thyrididae, egg, first instar, Honduras The systematic position of the Thyrididae is unclear. Munroe (1972) and Whalley ( 1976) tentatively united thyridids with oth-er Pyraloidea. Common (1990) and Minet (1983) elevated this group to its own su-perfamily named Thyridoidea. Passoa (1985) suggested pupal pilifers as a synapo-morphy of Pyralidae, Hyblaeidae, Ptero-phoridae, and Thyrididae. Although the presence of pilifers is apomorphic (by virtue of the outgroup comparison method where Monotrysia is a sister group to Ditrysia), this character is homoplastic because pupal pilifers also occur in the unrelated Papili-onoidea (Mosher 1916). Very little is known about immature thyridids (Whalley 1976). Therefore, the egg and some first instar lar-val characteristics of Draconia rusina Druce are described here to aid in comparing the morphology of pyraloid families for system-atic and identification purposes. Draconia rusina is a large moth previ-ously recorded from Guatemala, Panama and Venezuela (Gaede 1936). Several spec-imens of D. rusina were collected in Co-mayagua, Honduras (Department of Co-mayagua) at a blacklight during April, 1 979, and again in March and May, 1980. Ap-proximately 20 eggs were obtained in 1979 (parental female number 78, S. Passoa coll.) using cheesecloth as an oviposition sub-strate. They were either dried or preserved in 80% ethanol. After several years, a few dried eggs were mounted on aluminum stubs with Elmer's glue and sputter coated twice at different angles with gold-palladium for further study. These were examined with an information Scientific instrument DS-130 scanning electron microscope and photo-graphed with Polaroid type 55 positive/neg-ative film. Structural measurements, ex-pressed in microns or millimeters, were made directly from the scale line on the photographs after dividing by the magnifi-cation. Egg terminology follows Downey and Allyn(1981). The egg (Figs. 1-4) is cream-colored and subcylindrical with nearly parallel truncate ends (length 1.29-1.34 mm, mean = 1.30 mm, n = 4; width 0.61-0.68 mm, mean = 0.65 mm, n = 3). The chorion sculpturing is composed of approximately 21 ridges parallel to the long axis of the egg (Fig. 1) that converge and terminate at the micro-pylar shoulder (Fig. 3). Ridges across the long axis are usually straight and separated, although a few are crossed or bifurcate (Figs. 1, 2; inter-ridge distance 17.02-29.79 ^lm,
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