The Life of Inland Waters; An Elementary Text Book of Fresh-Water Biology for American Students (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1916 edition. Excerpt: ...aquatic carnivores. Three families of blood-sucking Diptera have aquatic larvae; the mosquitos (Culicida?), the horseflies (Tabanidae) and the black flics (Simuliidae). Mosquito larvae are the well known "wrigglers" that live in rain water barrels and in temporary pools. They are readily distinguished from other Dipterous larvae by their swollen thoracic segments and their tail fin. The pupae are free swimming and hang suspended at the surface with a pair of large respiratory horns or trumpets in contact with the surface when at rest. The larvae of the horseflies are burrowers in the mud of the bottom. They are cylindric in form, tapering to both ends, headless, appendageless, hairless, and have the translucent and very mobile body ringed with segmentally arranged tubercles. They are carnivorous, and feed upon the body fluids of snails and aquatic worms and other animals. The white spiny pupae are formed in the mud of the shore. The tiny black eggs (fig. 138) are laid in close patches on the vertical stems or leaves of emergent aquatic plants. Black fly larvae live in rapid streams, attached in companies to the surfaces of rocks or timbers over which the swiftest water pours. They are blackish, and often conspicuous at a distance by reason of their numbers. They have cylindric bodies that are swollen toward the posterior end, which is attached to the supporting surface by a sucking disc. Underneath the mouth is a single median proleg, and on the front of the head convenient to the mouth, there is a pair of "fans," whose function is to strain forage organisms out of the passing current. The full grown larva spins a basketlike cocoon on the vertical face of the rock or timber, and in this passes its pupal stage. The eggs are...