Chloronia

Chloronia
Adult Chloronia osae from Las Cruces Biological Station, Costa Rica
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Clade: Pancrustacea
Class: Insecta
Order: Megaloptera
Family: Corydalidae
Subfamily: Corydalinae
Genus: Chloronia
Banks, 1908
Type species
Hermes corripiens
Walker, 1860

Chloronia is a genus of dobsonflies in the family Corydalidae.

Description

Chloronia is one of the three New World dobsonfly genera, the other two being Platyneuromus and Corydalus. Chloronia are easily distinguished by their bright yellow coloration with black spots and are present from Northern Mexico south to Eastern South America. Chloronia frequently inhabit the same streams as Corydalus but prefer slower moving waters. Their larvae are distinguishable by their dark head and four dark spots on their pronotum.

Ecology

Species in the genus are attracted to light, especially UV light and most museum specimens have been caught using this method. They are found near running water, but they do not seem to have a preference for width of the river, as they have been found by rivers of 1–20 meters, though there may be more specific preferences for certain species such as possibly Chloronia hieroglyphica. The larvae are predatory as in other Megaloptera and are hypothesized to feed on larvae in the genus Simulium.

Taxonomy

Chloronia contains the following 18 species as of 2026:

Phylogeny

A 2025 study made the following phylogeny using molecular techniques:

Corydalinae

References

  1. ↑ "Chloronia". Integrated Taxonomic Information System.
  2. ↑ Contreras-Ramos, Atilano (1995). "New Species of Chloronia from Ecuador and Guatemala, with a Key to the Species in the Genus (Megaloptera:Corydalidae)". Journal of the North American Benthological Society. 14 (1): 108–114. doi:10.2307/1467727. ISSN 0887-3593.
  3. ↑ de la Rosa, Carlos L. (1992). "Phoretic Associations of Chironomidae (Diptera) on Corydalidae (Megaloptera) in Northwestern Costa Rican Streams". Journal of the North American Benthological Society. 11 (3): 316–323. doi:10.2307/1467651. ISSN 0887-3593.
  4. ↑ Contreras-Ramos, Atilano; Harris, Steven C. (1998). "The Immature Stages of Platyneuromus (Corydalidae), with a Key to the Genera of Larval Megaloptera of Mexico". Journal of the North American Benthological Society. 17 (4): 489–517. doi:10.2307/1468368. ISSN 0887-3593.
  5. ↑ Penny, N. D.; Flint, Oliver S. (1982). "A Revision of the Genus Chloronia (Neuroptera: Corydalidae)". Smithsonian Contributions to Zoology (348): 1–27. doi:10.5479/si.00810282.348. ISSN 0081-0282.
  6. ↑ Martins, Caleb C.; Ardila-Camacho, Adrian; Rivera-Gasperín, Sara Lariza; Oswald, John D.; Liu, Xingyue; Contreras-Ramos, Atilano (2022-04-08). "A world checklist of extant and extinct species of Megaloptera (Insecta: Neuropterida)". European Journal of Taxonomy (812): 1727. Bibcode:2022EJTax.812.1727M. doi:10.5852/ejt.2022.812.1727. ISSN 2118-9773.
  7. ↑ Wang, Wenye; Tian, Shuo; Wang, Zifan; Wang, Yuyu; Liu, Xingyue; Jiang, Yunlan (2025-11-10). "Mitogenomic Insights into Temperature Adaptation: A Comparative Study of the Subfamily Corydalinae Davis, 1903 (Megaloptera: Corydalidae)". Insects. 16 (11): 1151. doi:10.3390/insects16111151. ISSN 2075-4450. PMC 12653108. PMID 41302897.