Saetheria Jackson

Kobayashi, Tadashi, 2007, Kloosia Kruseman, Chernovskiia Saether, Robackia Saether, and Saetheria Jackson (Chironomidae: Chironominae) in Japan, Zootaxa 1527, pp. 1-15 : 9-10

Saetheria Jackson

Saetheria Jackson, 1977: 1325 .

Jackson (1977) separated the genus Saetheria from the closely related genus Paracladopelma Harnisch basically on the immature stages. However, the males can be separated on the shape of the anal tergite bands, Saetheria has strongly Y-shaped anal tergite bands, while in Paracladopelma the anal tergite bands are either absent, or completely or partly fused, T- or shallowly Y- shaped ( Cranston et al. 1989). Larvae of Saetheria have a 6 segmented antenna, while in Paracladopelma the antenna is 5 segmented ( Jackson 1977; Pinder & Reiss 1983).

In Japan, there have been 10 records of Saetheria , based on larvae only. The absence of records of adults has puzzled the author. However, during the present study six males of S. tylus ( Townes, 1945) were found. Furthermore, three species described as males only, namely Paracladopelma nagaraelongata Sasa, 1989 , P. kisopediformis Sasa et Kondo, 1993 , and Parachironomus taishoabeus Sasa et Tanaka, 2001 , all proved to be junior synonyms of S. tylus .

Due to the lack of associated adults, it is not possible to ascertain the species identity of the 10 previous larval records: Kitagawa (1998, as Saetheria sp. A, tributary to Kizu River, Mie Prefecture, catalog); Kitagawa (1997b, as Saetheria sp. SA, Lake Biwa, Shiga, description); Kitagawa (2000, as Saetheria sp. SA, Muko River, Hyogo Prefecture, catalog); Kitagawa (2001, as Saetheria sp. SB, Tokoro River and Kushiro Rivers, Hokkaido, catalog); Kitagawa (2003, as Saetheria sp. SD, Kawabe River, Kumamoto Prefecture, catalog); Kitagawa (2003, as Saetheria sp. SE, tributary to Takahari River, Okayama Prefecture, catalog); Kitagawa (2004, as Saetheria sp. SF, tributary to Shinano River, Niigata Prefecture, catalog; and as Saetheria sp. SG, tributaries to Shinano River, Nagano Prefecture, catalog); Kitagawa (2005, as Saetheria sp. SH, tributary to Nagara River, Gifu Prefecture, catalog); Inoue et al. (2003, as Saetheria sp., Kizu River, Kyohtanabe, Kyoto Prefecture, catalog).

Jackson (1977) recognized three species of Saetheria , namely S. tylus ( Townes, 1945) , S. reissi Jackson, 1977 and S. sp. 1 (pupa and larva only), and described the larva of S. tylus and sp. 1, but not of S. reissi . Subsequently, Saether (1983) described the female, pupa and larva of a fourth species, S. hirta Saether, 1983 , from South Carolina, U.S.A. Saetheria reissi was recorded from the Sakhalin Island by Makarchenko et al. (2005) and from North Korea by Reiss (1980); S. tylus from the Russian Far East by Makarchenko et al. (2005).