Telmatogeton Schiner, 1866

Namayandeh, Armin, Hudson, Patrick L., Bogan, Daniel L. & Hudson, John P., 2024, Chironomidae (Diptera: Insecta) of Alaska, USA, with descriptions of new species and a checklist, Zootaxa 5511 (1), pp. 1-95 : 39

Telmatogeton Schiner, 1866

The single species in Alaska Telmatogeton alaskensis Coquillett, 1900 an intertidal species, was initially described as new from Yakutat in June 1899 by Coquillett (1900). The only other collections were a series reported by O’Clair (1977) from Amchitka Island and Walker et al. 2013 from East and West Kasatochi Islands, both in the Aleutian Islands. O’Clair (1977) material was collected in December and most likely represents larvae, whereas Walker et al. (2013) collection of adults was in August. Adults can fly but usually run rapidly over the surface of rocks in the splash zone near the high-water mark. Copulation takes place on exposed rocks. Adults can be collected with a sweep net from aerial and terrestrial regions close to algae-coated bedrock, boulders, and in the spray zones of intertidal streams in Yakutat and Kasatochi Island. The lack of collections from other rugged coastal areas of Alaska probably represents a lack of sampling this type of habitat since many collectors rely on sweep nets to collect adult material from aerial mating swarms.