Chernovskiia Saether

Kobayashi, Tadashi, 2007, Kloosia Kruseman, Chernovskiia Saether, Robackia Saether, and Saetheria Jackson (Chironomidae: Chironominae) in Japan, Zootaxa 1527, pp. 1-15 : 4-5

Chernovskiia Saether

Chernovskiia Saether, 1977: 107 –108.

The males of Chernovskiia are very similar to Paracladopelma Harnisch , both having clubbed or pediform superior volsella covered microtrichiae. However, the males can be distinguished from Paracladopelma by not having the inferior volsella developed as a distinct lobe ( Cranston et al. 1989). The larvae of Chernovskiia are rather distinctive, having a strongly curved mandible with a very long apical tooth, strongly concave mentum with heavily striated, coarsely crenated ventromental plate, and body segments subdivided, so the body seems to consist of twenty segments ( Pinder & Reiss 1983).

Saether (1977) included three species in Chernovskiia , namely C. orbicus ( Townes, 1945) , C. macrocera Saether, 1977 , and C. amphitrite ( Townes, 1945) , the last species is Nearctic. Keys or differentiation diagnoses to the species were given by Saether (1977), and Pinder and Reiss (1983); Saether’s key to the larvae includes only two species, C. orbicus and C. macrocera .

There are two records of Chernovskiia from Japan. Kondo et al. (1990: 175) listed C. orbicus from Tamanoi (Kiso River, about 38 km from the mouth), Kisogawa Town, Aichi Prefecture, June 1987; and Kitagawa (1997a: 163–164) described the larva of Chernovskiia sp. CA. from Kiso River, near Tamanoi. As the former specimen is lost, the record could not be verified.