Abstract
The family Chironomidae is the most widely distributed and frequently the most abundant group of insects in freshwater environments. An enormous amount has been written about their biology (51, 69), and yet the detailed ecology and life cycles of the great majority of species are unknown and most general faunistic works either ignore the Chironomidae or deal with them superficially ( 146). The primary reason for such deficiencies is the lack of readily available for their identification, coupled with the large number of species frequently encountered within even a small water body. The recent generic diagnoses and keys to larvae and pupae of the Holaretie region (214, 2 1 5), which will shortly be followed by a similar treatment of adult males, should do much to remedy this situation. The first attempt to summarize the ecology of the Chironomidae was by Thienemann ( 1 89), and there have been two, more recent, reviews that provide useful summaries of the natural history of the group ( 136, 1 49).
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