A couple years ago I posted about an old manuscript by George Beatty (undated, but probably from the 1960s) we had just scanned and made available for anyone to read and cite. The presumably unpublished manuscript focused on the myriad labels that have been used for immature stages of insects, especially in relation to Odonata. What should we call them, nymphs, naiads, or larvae?
I was amused to see this debate light up again on the pages of Systematic Entomology, with a recent paper by Bybee et al. (2015) and rebuttal by Sahlén et al. (2016). It seems that Beatty’s manuscript is as relevant as ever! You can read it here:
Beatty, G. H. (1960s?) Terms applied to the immature stage of Odonata. Unpublished manuscript, available at https://scholarsphere.psu.edu/files/g732d905v
After carefully considering the research, I’ll continue to refer to early stage Odonata as “larvae”, “immatures”, and “naiads”. They’ll never be nymphs!
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