Thursday 14 October 2010

Solomon Island Caddisflies

Caddisflies (order Trichoptera) are one of the major groups of aquatic insects, well known for building cute cases out of sand, grit and other detritus.

While having a fair number of species, relatively little is known about the group in the Pacific, with the exception of some excellent work being done on the New Caledonian fauna. That being the case, it was excellent to see that nine species were described in a paper recently published in Zootaxa, authored by Kjell Arne Johansen, the man behind the current work on New Caledonian Trichoptera. With only 16 species previously described from the islands, this represents a fairly sizable addition to our knowledge of the caddisflies of the Solomon Islands.

References:

Johansen KA, Espeland M. 2010. Description of new Chimarra (Trichoptera: Philopotamidae) species from the Solomon Islands. Zootaxa 2638:25-43

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