Water Bugs and Taxonomy
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| Mayfly Larva |
A whole range of different insects, crustaceans, and worms can be found in a sample collected for AUSRIVAS assessment. The sample needs to be sorted and the organisms identified. The science that looks at the classification of organisms is called taxonomy.
In the Northern Territory, most organisms are identified to the taxonomic level of family or genus. The insect pictured on the right is a mayfly larva with the genus name Baetis that belongs to the family Baetidae.
In the Darwin streams, the number of taxa identified to genus level varies between 19 and 51 per stream with a total of 150 different taxa found in the region.
Some organisms such as worms are only identified to class or order taxonomic level, ie oligochaets and nematodes.
The taxa collected in the Darwin streams belong to 17 orders. The specimens identified to family level belong to 67 families, of which a maximum number of 28 has been collected in one stream.
 Insect larva belonging to the beetle family Elmidae |
 Midge larva |
 Midge Adult |
| Streams in the Top End are characterised by a large variety and number of midge larvae, which belong to the family of Chironomidae and require special taxonomic expertise to identify to genus level. | ||
