Cardiocladius Kieffer, 1912

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 : 55

Cardiocladius Kieffer, 1912

Cardiocladius obscurus (Johannsen, 1903) and Cardiocladius cf. capucinus (Zettersttedt, 1850) , are the first records of this genus from Alaska. Adult C. obscurus specimens were collected near Tangle River where it crosses Highway 8 in the Central bioregion in mid-August. C. cf. capucinus larvae were collected from the East Alsek River in Glacier Bay NP. These larvae did not key to the known Nearctic species, Cardiocladius albiplumus Saether, 1969 , but rather resembled the European C. capucinus .

The larvae of Cardiocladius live in flowing water, preying on blackfly’ larvae and as an ectoparasite on Hydropsychidae pupae ( Parker & Voshell 1979). Females of C. capucinus are known to perform communal ovipositing, where a single female attaches her eggs to some structure in the water, and other females continue to add their eggs to a growing composite egg mass ( Dinulescu 1932).