Aquarius (bug) explained
Aquarius is a genus of water striders found predominantly in the northern hemisphere. Formerly a subgenus, Aquarius was elevated to generic rank in 1990 on the basis of phylogenetic analysis.[1] [2] These are among the world's largest water striders, with females averaging NaNmm long and males roughly 10–30% smaller, depending on the exact species. An outlier is A. elongatus where both sexes typically are about 24mm, roughly the same as certain Cylindrostethus, and second only to Gigantometra gigas.[3]
Species
There are 17 species in the genus Aquarius:[4]
- Aquarius adelaidis (Dohrn, 1860)
- Aquarius amplus (Drake & Harris, 1938)
- Aquarius antigone (Kirkaldy, 1899)
- Aquarius chilensis (Berg, 1881)
- Aquarius cinereus (Puton, 1869)
- Aquarius conformis (Uhler, 1878)
- Aquarius distanti (Horváth, 1899)
- Aquarius elongatus (Uhler, 1896)
- Aquarius fabricii Andersen, 1990
- Aquarius lili D.A. Polhemus & J.T. Polhemus, 1994
- Aquarius najas (De Geer, 1773)
- Aquarius nebularis (Drake & Hottes, 1925)
- Aquarius paludum (Fabricius, 1794)
- Aquarius philippinensis Zettel & Ruiz, 2003
- Aquarius remigis (Say, 1832)
- Aquarius remigoides Gallant & Fairbairn, 1996
- Aquarius ventralis (Fieber, 1861)
Notes and References
- Andersen, Nils Møller. 1990. Phylogeny and taxonomy of water striders, genus Aquarius Schellenberg (Insecta, Hemiptera, Gerridae)., with a new species from Australia. Steenstrupia. 16. 4. 37 - 81.
- Gallant, Sharon L. . Fairbairn, Daphne J.. 1996. A New Species of Aquarius from the Southeastern United States, with Electrophoretic Analysis of the Clade Containing Gerris, Limnoporus, and Aquarius (Hemiptera: Gerridae). Annals of the Entomological Society of America. 89. 5. 637 - 644. 10.1093/aesa/89.5.637.
- Andersen, N.M. . 1997 . A phylogenetic analysis of the evolution of sexual dimorphism and mating systems in water striders (Hemiptera: Gerridae) . Biological Journal of the Linnean Society . 61 . 3 . 345–368 . 10.1006/bijl.1996.0130 . free .
- Jakob . Damgaard . Felipe Ferraz Figuiredo . Moreira . Tom A. . Weir . Herbert . Zettel . Molecular phylogeny of the pond skaters (Gerrinae), discussion of the fossil record and a checklist of species assigned to the subfamily (Hemiptera: Heteroptera: Gerridae) . 2014 . Insect Systematics & Evolution . 45 . 3 . 251–281 . 10.1163/1876312X-44042105.