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Soil & Water Conservation Society of Metro Halifax (SWCSMH)
Updated: October 09, 2013 
Contents:
- Insects of Inland Waters: Orders Having Aquatic Adults
- Superphylum Arthropoda
- (jointed-legged metazoan animals [Gr, arthron = joint; pous = foot])
- Phylum Entoma
- Subphylum Uniramia
- (L, unus = one; ramus = branch, referring to the unbranched nature of the appendages)
- Superclass Hexapoda
- (Gr, hex = six, pous = foot)
- Class Insecta
- (L, insectum meaning cut into sections)
- Subclass Ptilota
- Infraclass Neopterygota
Introduction
The Hymenoptera is a large order of insects
containing the bees, wasps, ants, sawflies and their similar forms, the
vast majority of which are terrestrial. The order is divided into two
suborders, the Symphyta (sawflies and horntails), and the Apocrita
(bees, wasps and ants). There appear to be no aquatic symphytans, but
several families within the Apocrita contain species that are, in some
way, associated with water. The latter are all wasps and they are all
parasitic on a variety of aquatic hosts (cf. Table below).
With few exceptions, aquatic wasps
are small but, otherwise, they show little in the way of morphological
adaptations to water. In Caraphractus cinctus, a tiny mymarid
wasp whose life cycle is perhaps the best known, the adults spend quite
some time under water, swimming with their wings and respiring
cutaneously. In the autumn, larvae enter a diapause in the final instar
which carries them over to the next spring when they pupate and emerge.
Major families of aquatic wasp, together with the hosts that they typically parasitize (Williams & Feltmate, 1992)
| Family | Hosts |
|---|
| Apocrita |
| Section Parasitica |
| Braconidae | Diptera (Ephydridae), Lepidoptera (Noctuidae) |
| Ichneumonidae | Coleoptera, Lepidoptera, Trichoptera, Diptera |
| Mymaridae | Hemiptera (esp. Gerridae), Odonata, Coleoptera |
| Trichogrammatidae | Odonata, Diptera, Hemiptera, Coleoptera, Megaloptera |
| Eulophidae | Odonata (esp. Lestidae), Coleoptera |
| Pteromalidae | Diptera (Ephydridae), Coleoptera, Neuroptera |
| Diapriidae | Diptera (Ephydridae, Sciomyzidae), Coleoptera |
| Scelionidae | Hemiptera (esp. Gerridae), Lepidoptera, Diptera |
| Agriotypidae | Trichoptera (ectoparasites) |
| Eucoilidae | Diptera (Ephydridae) |
| Section Aculeata |
| Pompilidae | Araneae (pisaurid spiders) |
References and web URLs:
- Narf, R. 1997. Midges, bugs, whirligigs
and others: The distribution of insects in Lake "U-Name-It". Lakeline.
N. Am. Lake Manage. Soc. 16-17, 57-62.
- Williams, D.D., and Feltmate, B.W. 1992. Aquatic Insects. CAB International. ISBN: 0-85198-782-6. xiii, 358p.
- Mandaville, S.M. 1999.
Bioassessment of Freshwaters Using Benthic Macroinvertebrates-A Primer.
First Ed. Project E-1, Soil & Water Conservation Society of Metro
Halifax. viii, Chapters I-XXVII, Appendices A-D. 244p.
- For the entire Report, download all the files in the subdirectory, Primer1
- Chapter XX: Order Hymenoptera (aquatic wasps, etc.)
- Tree of Life
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