Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 July 2009
The pseudopupa and last larval instar of Epicauta erythrocephala, Pall., have remained undescribed up to the present, although the economic importance of the insect is very great, the beetle being an important pest of many cultivated plants and its larva a parasite of locust egg-pods. These stages are, however, figured in the work of I. Portchinsky, published in 1914, but in the figure of the pseudopupa the stigmata on the three thoracic segments are omitted.
During investigations made in early spring (1926–1927) in the environment of Old Bukhara, I found a great quantity of the pseudopupae and larvae of the last instar of E. erythrocephala in the soil. In the early spring of 1929 the same instars were reared in the insectary of the Agricultural Experimental Station at Shirabudin (Old Bukhara).