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PRELIMINARY REMARKS ON THE INSECT FAUNA OF THE GREAT SALT LAKE, UTAH

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 May 2012

E. A. Schwarz
Affiliation:
Washington, D. C.

Extract

The Great Salt Lake of Utah has been easily accessible for many years, and its shores have been visited by various entomologists; so that it seems strange that no one has hitherto published a comprehensive or even partial list of the insects occurring in that interesting locality. During the present summer, while on a short excursion to Utah with Mr. H. G. Hubbard, we had the opportunity of spending some time in the investiagation of the insect faune of the Lake.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Entomological Society of Canada 1891

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References

page no 236* The dead bodies of various insects of other orders which have fallen into the Lake are intermingled with the mass of the Ephydras. Most of them are badly decayed, and the number of individuals and species thus found is very small.

page no 237** During calm weather the puparia must float for several days on the lake, and it would seem probable that the imagos are able to issue from the pupa on the surface of the water.

page no 239* On June 25th we found at the southern shore of the lake a considerable number of Anabrus simplex washed up by the waves and all badly decayed. Since we were unable to find a single living specimen of these gigantic crickets under stones, etc., anywhere near the lake we concluded that they must have bred on Antilope Island, situated about nine miles from the shore where the dead specimens were seen. But since my return from Utah I have read Dr. Aug. Forel's vivid account of the life-habits of the North African desert cricket, Brachytrypus megacephalus, which is a nocturnal-species and lives on sandy soil in deep holes, which are closed up during day time by a hillet of sand. Anabrus simplex has possibly similar habits, and we may, after all, have over-looked its abodes in dry, sandy places close to the lake.

page no 240* Most of the species found at the Great Salt Lake will no doubt occur also at Lake Sevier, in Southern Utah, which has never to my knowledge been visited by any entomologist.

page no 240** Tenebrionids of the genera Eleodes, Coniontis and Blapstinus are occasionally found at the Lake, but clearly belong to the desert fauna, while certain species of Sphenophorus, which abound at the roots of rushes, and a few other Rhynchophora are ikewise not saline species.