Rheosmittia Brundin, 1956

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 : 72

Rheosmittia Brundin, 1956

Rheosmittia spinicornis ( Brundin, 1956) is one of two species known from the Nearctic. We collected pupae from Wasilla and Clear Creek in the Mat-Su Valley in mid-June and several larvae of this species from Steambath Creek south of Nondalton. This is a new faunistic record for Alaska. We collected Rheosmittia larvae from Arctic Coastal Plain streams (AWQMS 2005), the Koyukuk River, and a tributary to the South Fork Koktuli River (Arctos database 2022). We collected larvae of Rheosmittia in many streams in the Southcoastal and Southwestern Alaska, as well as from rivers in the Kanuti National Wildlife Refuge. The larvae of this genus are relatively small and typically found in sandy substrates of streams and rivers (Andersen et al. 2013).