Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Keywords
Water beetles ￿ Bugs ￿ Entomofaunal diversity ￿ Systematic ￿ Surveys
Introduction
viz. Wyra, Pocharam, Kolleru, Hussain Sagar,
Miralam, Himayat Sagar, Durgam Cheruvu,
Manjeera, etc. During 2008-2012, various sur-
veys were made to different collection locali-
ties, and insect collections were made with the
help of hand-operated nets of varying sizes by
randomly netting different areas of wetland.
While surface-fl oating/swimming insects were
collected with small circular nets made of either
coarsely meshed cotton cloths or fi nely meshed
polyester mosquito curtain cloth, macrophyte-
associated insects were collected with the help
of hand-operated “D”-framed sweep net of the
size of 50 cm length, 25 cm maximum breadth
of the “D”. The frame was attached to a bag net
made of fi ne malmal cloth with mesh size of
approximately 200
Insects are the most diverse group of organisms
in freshwater. Estimates on the global number of
aquatic insect species derived from the fauna of
North America, Australia and Europe are about
45,000 species; of this, about 5,000 species are
estimated to inhabit inland wetlands of India.
True aquatic insects are those that spend some
part of their life cycle closely associated with
water, either living beneath the surface or skim-
ming along on top of the water. Aquatic insects
can be found in the taxonomic orders, viz.
Collembola, Ephemeroptera, Odonata,
Plecoptera, Hemiptera, Coleoptera, Neuroptera,
Trichoptera, Lepidoptera and Diptera. In this
chapter only Hemiptera (bugs) and Coleoptera
(beetles) of Hyderabad are included.
The state of Andhra Pradesh has about
3,66,609 ha extent of inland waterbodies of India.
Hyderabad has 501 lakes and 3,086 tanks and
several ponds and pools. Hyderabad city in
Andhra Pradesh is located in the heart of Deccan
plateau of India at latitude 17° 20
. The design and operation
of the net was roughly based on those described
by Junk ( 1977 ). The net was put on the bottom
against the water current and then the area in
front of the net was disturbed by the foot. The
insects which live in the gravel and sand drifted
into the sieve bag. All samples are preserved in
70 % ethanol for sorting and identifi cation in
the laboratory. The aquatic insects were sieved
by using a 0.5 mm stainless steel sieve, sorted
into a Petri dish and identifi ed by using a taxo-
nomical key.
All the aquatic insect material reported herein
has been collected by the author herself. Aquatic
Hemiptera in the collections were identifi ed with
the aid of standard literature on the group, viz.
Thirumalai ( 1999 ) and Bal and Basu ( 1994a ),
and aquatic Coleoptera were identifi ed in litera-
ture by Vazirani ( 1970 , 1984 ) and Biswas and
Mukhopadhyay ( 1995 ).
ʼ
N and longi-
tude 78° 30
E; it is spread over 1,552 km and
includes a major wetland which constitutes lentic
and lotic freshwater resources. Among lotic
resources, the main river Musi passes through the
city.
Methods
During the course of monthly surveys in con-
nection with studies on lakes of Hyderabad,
Andhra Pradesh, major lakes were selected,
 
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