The Aquatic Arthropods (Insects, Crustaceans and Mites) of South(ern) Africa

Co-ordinated by Martin Villet

Department of Zoology & Entomology, Rhodes University, Grahamstown

© Copyright of these pages belongs to their respective authors.

South Africa has an amazingly rich fauna and flora, and is named by Conservation International as one of the planet's 17 most megadiverse countries. According to their statistics, South Africa ranks sixth in the world for total diversity, and has significant rates of endemism in many groups of organisms (3rd highest for higher plants, 14th for mammals, 17th for birds, 14th for reptiles, and 17th for amphibians). The country also contains two of the world's "biodiversity hotspots": the Succulent Karoo, and the Cape Floristic Region.

The aims of this web site are

• to catalogue the aquatic arthropod biodiversity of South(ern) Africa, particularly in terms of agreements like the Convention on Biodiversity;
• to provide a channel of communication between experts and the wider public;
• to provide a "shop window" for professional Southern African systematic entomology;
• to encourage participation by everyone holding expertise in the systematics, biogeography and biodiversity of Southern African insects.

This web site started as a teaching excercise, and has grown through the encouragement and active participation of folk such as Ferdy de Moor, Helen Barber-James, Arthur Harrison, Tanza Crouch, Penny Greenslade, Tessa Hedge, Patrick Reavell, Koen Martens, Mary Jean Gabriel, Martin Hill, Irene de Moor, Steve Mitchell, Nancy Rayner, Michelle Hamer, Luc Brendonck, Maitland Seaman, Dawie Kok, Marie Watson, and Hamish Robertson. Major developments flowed from the encouragement by the Institute for Water Quality Studies and the Water Research Comission, and the site has evolved to include reference material, links to other specialist web sites, and pictures of many of the animals. In time it may even incorporate keys too.

We are particularly grateful to the Institute for Water Quality Studies, Department of Water Affairs and Forestry, for providing photographs of some of the animals, and to the Water Research Comission for linking this project to their series of guides to the identification of Southern Africa's freshwater invertebrates. If you have anything that you would like to contribute, please drop us an e-message.

The authors of particular lists can generally be contacted by e-mail from the page(s) that they contributed. Links to international sites specializing in particular groups can be found on the appropriate pages too. The owners of these sites have been very supportive of this initiative, and provide excellent springboards for further enquiries on particular groups. Links to other sites dealing with the biology of specific aquatic insect groups are being added to the appropriate pages.

You are welcome to make links to any page(s) in this site, and to make regularly updated mirror sites, but please do not copy or redistribute material from this Web site because the copies will not be kept up to date. Copyright of each page in this site is held by its author.