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General information and editorial notes News and Notes Activities at the Entomological Societies' Meeting Summary of the Scientific Committee Meeting Biological Survey Website Update The Alberta Lepidopterists Guild Project Update: Arthropods of Canadian Grasslands Canadian Perspectives: The Study of Insect Dormancies and Life Cycles Virtual Museum of the Strickland Museum of Entomology European Workshop of Invertebrate Ecophysiology 2001 |
— test your knowledge of Canada and
its fauna — 1. What is the
most westerly point of Canada? Answer 2. How many Canadian place names, including creeks, etc. are based on
the common English family name “Smith” [e.g. Smiths Falls, Fort Smith,
Smith Sound, Mount Robert Smith]? Answer 3. Name five families of insects that contain several or many
species known to aestivate as adults. Answer 4. What are “sand flies”? Answer 5. Name 20 families of Canadian insects containing species of
parasitoids that attack other terrestrial arthropods. Answer
Answers to Faunal Quiz
2. Listed in recent gazetteers are 439 Canadian place names based on the family name Smith.
3. Insect families with adults known to aestivate include Noctuidae and other moths and butterflies, Chrysopidae among the lacewings, Limnephilidae among the caddisflies, and several families of beetles such as Coccinellidae, Chrysomelidae, Curculionidae, and Carabidae.
4. The term "sand flies" normally refers to certain Psychodidae, especially the species of Phlebotomus in Europe, Asia and Africa, and of Lutzomyia and Brumptomyia in North, Central and South America (and the Caribbean Islands), that transmit several unpleasant diseases to humans, including leishmaniasis. Some Canadian psychodids bite amphibians or reptiles, but none bites humans. In North America, the term "sand flies" is often used instead or as well to refer to biting midges (Ceratopogonidae) of the genera Culicoides and Leptoconops that bite humans. And the term is even used occasionally there for black flies (Simuliidae) that attack humans.
5. Many families of Canadian insects contain (or are exclusively) parasitoids, including families such as Braconidae, Ichneumonidae, Mymaridae, Trichogrammatidae, Eulophidae, Aphelinidae, Encyrtidae, Eupelmidae, Eucharitidae, Perilampidae, Torymidae, Pteromalidae, Chalcididae, Eucoilidae, Proctotrupidae, Diapriidae, Scelionidae, Platygastridae, Ceraphronidae and Bethylidae among the Hymenoptera, and families such as Phoridae, Conopidae, Sarcophagidae, Rhinophoridae and Tachinidae among the Diptera, as well as the Stylopidae.
Corrections: From the quiz in Newsletter 20 (2), pp. 58, 66. Question 2: Typical developmental stages of mites should include the tritonymph (third nymphal instar), because it is the plesiomorphic state among the Acari even though it has been lost in many groups [contributed by Evert Lindquist]. Question 4: The dipteran family Corethrellidae (formerly part of Chaoboridae) also begins with the letter C [contributed by Art Borkent]. |
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