- Water bugs; Hemiptera; Pleidae; Morphology; Body parts; Legs.
Abstract
Family Pleidae includes the truly aquatic bugs called pleids, commonly known as pigmy backswimmers. Taxonomic studies traditionally used morphological features in identification of a species and development of key or the world catalogue. This resulted in ambiguity and incompleteness in the taxa of various families. The present study deals with utility of scanning electron microscope as a tool in identification of the species of the family Pleidae in freshwater bodies of Chennai City – Paraplea frontalis. Varies body parts (Rostrum, antennae, legs, ventral region of the body) of the bug were scanned to observe additional morphological features hitherto not reported. SEM is a common tool used for insect study. In the present study, Sem is used in the taxonomical study of pleids