SPENDING TIME AT the cottage involves spending time with creepy-crawlies, whether you love them or you hate them. Dock spiders and mosquitoes and water striders and bees…it’s a never-ending list. And those are only the ones that you actually see on a regular basis. Insects alone make up about 80 per cent of the world’s species, and they all play a huge role in the ecosystem. “Ants are often under-appreciated for all that they do,” says Bob Anderson, an entomologist at the Canadian Museum of Nature and a long-time CL source for all things buggy. “Tiny parasitoid wasps that people will never notice keep insect populations in check. Fly maggots, meanwhile, aid in decomposition of animal and plant material.” And some of the most miniscule of our cottage-country beasts—including minute spiders and almost-invisible zooplankton—are the most crucial. It was a big job, but we managed to whittle the list down to seven small VICs (Very Important Creatures) that we wanted to highlight. Sorry, maggots. You didn’t make the cut.
MIDGES
What midges? The better question might actually be, “What midges?” Because, turns out, midges are lots of flying bugs. “The term ‘midge’ can refer to blackflies, sand flies, and numerous other small flies,” says Antonia Guidotti, a collection technician in the Department of are the ones that emerge in large numbers in the spring. They’re vital to a lake’s ecosystem (see “The Lake Food Chain,” p. 68). Their offspring, larvae tinier than a grain of rice, live at the bottom of deep lakes where they’re food for fish or other invertebrates.
