The phantom midges (Diptera: Chaoboridae) are a small fly family composed of 50 extant species in six genera. Larvae are of interest to limnologists and ecologists because of the role they play in zooplankton community dynamics and their ability to tolerate polluted waters. However, the group as a whole has not received the lavish attention as their putative sister group the Culicidae. My research reexamines the relationships among the six recognized genera of chaoborids using an exemplar approach to taxa selection including species from all known geographic regions. The goal is to find unambiguous support for the monophyly of the “chaoboriform” genera and to provide new character data useful for interpreting relationships in the Culicoidea.
More information on chaoborids
Immature chaetotaxy patterns
The relatively consistent setal patterns observed among immature Culicidae provides a wealth of diagnostic as well as informative phylogenetic characters. Despite its value within the Culicidae, few authors other than Belkin (1955; 1962; 1970) have tried to extend the chaetotaxy nomenclature outside of the mosquitoes. With a few modifications to the original setae numbering system Belkin putatively homologized the larval and pupal setae patterns in a few representatives of Corethrellidae and Dixidae with the chaetotaxy patterns in the Culicids. Despite the similarity of the immature chaetotaxy patterns between the chaoborids and mosquitoes, chaeototaxy patterns have been infrequently utilized as a source for either descriptive or phylogeneticly informative characters in Chaoboridae. The description and comparison of chaetotaxy patterns within the Chaoboridae and between the chaoborids and the culicids is necessary to establish homologies across taxa and to test currently proposed chaetotaxy homologies between immature life stages.
Belkin, J. N. 1962. The mosquitoes of the South Pacific (Diptera, Culicidae), Berkeley and Los Angeles.
Belkin, J. N., and W. A. McDonald. 1955. A population of Corethrella laneana from Death Valley, with
descriptions of all stages and discussion of the Corethrellini (Diptera, Culicidae). Bulletin, Southern
California Academy of Sciences 54:82-96.
Belkin . 1970. The Culcidae of Jamica: Subfamily Chaoborniae. Contrib. Amer. Ent. Inst. 6(1):237-247
