Podonominae, Thienemann & Edwards, 1837

Jambrović, Martina, Čerba, Dubravka & Hamerlik, Ladislav, 2023, First record of Parochlus kiefferi (Garrett, 1925) in a sediment sequence from a Slovak mountain lake with notes on paleolimnological interpretation, CHIRONOMUS Journal of Chironomidae Research 2023 (36), pp. 4-7 : 4

Podonominae in a nutshell

The subfamily Podonominae , whose species are generally considered rheophilic, cold-tolerant and poly- oxybiontic, is noted for its patchy distribution and a marked bipolarity ( Brundin 1966). Most genera oc- cur in the higher latitude regions of the southern hemisphere, with a smaller number of taxa present in the northern hemisphere. Within the Podonominae subfamily, the species-rich Parochlus genus shows the widest distribution. Parochlus species are largely concentrated in the southern hemisphere, and only one, Parochlus kiefferi (Garrett, 1925) , is present in the Holarctic region ( Brundin 1966). In Europe, it is mostly confined to its northern, and central parts ( Saether and Spies 2004, Brooks et al. 2007). The larvae are easily recognisable due to the unique mentum shape, which consists of one median tooth and seven lateral teeth, where the third laterals are nearly as tall as the median tooth, first and second laterals are short, with the first partially fused to the median tooth; the remaining lateral teeth of the mentum gradually decrease in size. Mandibles of P. kiefferi have five inner teeth, and their ventromental plates are weakly developed ( Brooks et al. 2007). Here, the first record of P. kiefferi in Slovakia, in a lake sediment sequence from a mountain lake, is presented.