• GENERAL
• Beetles 1
• Beetles 2
• Bugs
• Dragonflies
• Caddis
• Insects
• Arthropods
• Molluscs
•   
• Dutch

THE GALLERIES: background information, general

THE GALLERIES FORM THE BACKBONE OF THIS WEBSITE. They offer a number of index pictures, which you can click on to see photos and a description of the animal depicted. Simple. But what is the division in the galleries based on?
Answer: arbitrariness and taxonomy. In ditches and ponds live representatives of almost all the corners of the animal kingdom! Beetles stand out - and usually get the first attention. This is also the case on this website. Click on one of the tabs for specific background information.

The first gallery is Beetles 1 . Eventually I came to follow the division of most books on water beetles, which distinguish between the Adephaga and Polyphaga. Beetles 1 is reserved for the Adephaga ('meat eaters', adephagos = gluttony). The gallery now starts with Gyrinus. The subfamily Hydroporinae of the Dytiscidae, with small species, got its own gallery.

In the Larvae gallery the larvae of the Beetles 1 and Beetles 2 galleries are presented separately, because they are not immediately recognizable as beetle larvae for the layman. With the help of these pictures some larvae can be determined to the genus.

Beetles 2 houses the Polyphaga, meaning: all other beetles. These include the Hydrophilidae, with the Great Silver Water Beetle, but also semi-aquatic species such as weevils and the water-lily beetle.

In the Bugs gallery, two earlier galleries are combined: the surface bugs and the water bugs. Bugs superficially resemble beetles, but are not closely related. The different genera of bugs on and in the water are also not very closely related, they probably have different ancestors.

The Dragonfly gallery was eventually split off from the 'Other Insects' gallery . There are already many pictures of the imagos on the web, so in this gallery there are mainly pictures of the larvae (nymphs) of dragonflies and damselflies on display.

As the name suggests, the Caddis Larva gallery only contains the larvae of various caddisfly (Trichoptera) species.

The Other Insects gallery now contains the Diptera, which are the fly and mosquito larvae (and pupae), the larva of the mud fly and the water wasp Prestwichia.

The gallery Other arthropods includes springtails, spiders, mites and crustaceans. Water mites and water fleas have their own (sub)gallery, water mites are discussed on separate pages.

The Mollusc gallery with the snails and mussels, has been split off from the 'Other animals' gallery.

Finally, the 'collection bin' Other animals. The amphibians, the worms, hydrasA, a single bird and fish, . The sub-gallery 'Micro-organisms', which has since been promoted to an independent gallery, is also still included, because it felt appropriate for the enormous diversity of this collection bin.

Micro-organisms, the receptacle for microscopic organisms. The different groups only have their microscopic size in common. In some books, hydras and water fleas are also included, but this was not chosen here. A subgallery 'Algae' is still in the planning.

The 'extra' galleries.

The Peculiar Things gallery is a shed larval skin of the old 'Other Animals' gallery. It has been kept as a search aid for strange objects, a somewhat arbitrary choice, but mainly because the atmosphere of the gallery is appreciated.

Plants Plants, a planned future gallery of photos of ditch plants.

Ditch images, a planned future gallery, with photos of ditches, streams and ponds.