The reconstruction of ancient insect ectoparasitism is challenging, mostly because of the extreme scarcity of fossils with obvious ectoparasitic features such as sucking-piercing mouthparts and specialized attachment organs. Here we describe a bizarre fly larva (Diptera), Qiyia jurassica gen. et sp. nov., from the Jurassic of China, that represents a stem group of the tabanomorph family Atheric...

Terrestrial predators have been shown to aggregate along stream margins during periods when the emergence of adult aquatic insects is high. Such aggregation may be especially evident when terrestrial surroundings are relatively unproductive, and there are steep productivity gradients across riparia. In tropical forests, however, the productivity of inland terrestrial habitats may decrease the r...

Temporary aquatic environments are widespread in the world, and although there are considerable regional differences in their type and method of formation they have many physical, chemical and biological properties in common. With the aim to increase knowledge of urban temporary pool fauna, the objectives of this work were to assess the seasonal patterns of species composition, richness, and di...

The importance of two-way interactions between animals and the physical hydraulic sedimentological environment are increasingly recognized (e.g., zoogeomorphology). Caddisflies (Trichoptera) a group aquatic insects known for their bioconstructions, particularly cases built from fine sediment silk. Caddisfly differ in size, shape density incorporated sediment, case construction may therefore aff...

BACKGROUND Aquatic insects are very abundant and divers groups of insects that are associated with an aquatic or semiaquatic environment in one or more of their life stages. These insects have been, in some cases, well studied because they are vectors of several diseases. This is the first comprehensive faunistic study of aquatic insects from Babol County. The results may provide basic data for...

There are 63 species of aquatic bugs in Britain, of which 37 are listed as occurring in Scotland (Savage 1989). A preliminary report to Scottish Natural Heritage on the distribution of aquatic bugs in Scotland, supplemented by records for 1997 (Huxley 1997a, 1998), lists 45 (possibly 46) species, albeit a few in this list are very rare or may not still occur. In this article I summarize the fin...

Mutual trophic interactions between contiguous habitats have remained poorly understood despite their potential significance for community maintenance in ecological landscapes. In a deciduous forest and stream ecotone, aquatic insect emergence peaked around spring, when terrestrial invertebrate biomass was low. In contrast, terrestrial invertebrate input to the stream occurred primarily during ...

Aquatic insects often dominate lotic ecosystems, yet these organisms are under-represented in trace metal toxicity databases. Furthermore, toxicity data for aquatic insects do not appear to reflect their actual sensitivities to metals in nature, because the concentrations required to elicit toxicity in the laboratory are considerably higher than those found to impact insect communities in the f...