Insects
Odonata comes first — the dragonflies and damselflies — because they are the insects a stream declares itself through. Their larvae live in the water and the adults stay close to it, so the assemblage along a given reach describes that water rather than the landscape around it. Both suborders are documented: Zygoptera, the damselflies, and Anisoptera, the dragonflies.
Lepidoptera follows, and works the other side of the forest economy: adults at flowers, larvae on leaves, and a web of host-plant specificity between them.
Orders
Lepidoptera
The second order documented in this chapter. Where the odonates are predators of the stream corridor, Lepidoptera works the other side of the forest economy: the adults feed at flowers, the larvae eat leaves, and between them lies a web of host-plant specificity that makes the order one of the most-used indicator groups in Neotropical monitoring.
Odonata
Odonata are aerial predators whose larvae are aquatic. Both suborders are here: damselflies (Zygoptera), slender and weak on the wing, which fold their wings back along the body at rest; and dragonflies (Anisoptera), heavier and far stronger fliers, which hold theirs spread flat. The names record a wing character — zygo-ptera, yoked wings, for the matched fore and hind wings of a damselfly; aniso-ptera, unequal wings, for the broader-based hind wing of a dragonfly.