58 Lauterbornia 79: 58-60, D-86424 Dinkelscherben, 2015-05-08 First record of Rheocricotopus (s. str.) reduncus Sæther & Schnell, 1988 (Diptera: Chironomidae) from Slovakia: a new glacial relict found in the Tatra Mountains Ladislav Hamerlík, Katarína Thomková and Peter Bitušík With 2 figures and 1 table Keywords: Rheocricotopus, Chironomidae, Diptera, Insecta, glacial relict,Tatra Mountains, Slovakia, glacial lake, first record, faunistics Schlagwörter: Rheocricotopus, Chironomidae, Diptera, Insecta, Glazialrelikt, Tatra, Slowakei, Karsee, Erstfund, Fau- nistik Pupal exuviae of Rheocricotopus reduncus Sæther & Schnell were firstly recorded in Slovakia from the subalpine Tatra lake (Vyšné Furkotské pleso). The finding is indeed interesting considering the very rare and patchy dis- tribution of R. reduncus in the Palaearctic: it has only been recorded in Norway, Finland and NW Russia and Wrangel Island. The recent northern distribution and the new record suggest that R. reduncus could be a relict of the glacial fauna that existed in this region during the last glaciation. 1 Introduction Glacial relicts are organisms that have survived from the ice age on a certain territory in isol- ated habitats owing to a particularly favourable microclimate of the habitats. Lakes of glacial origin in the Tatra Mountains, due to their high altitude and cold temperature, can serve as ideal environment for hosting glacial relicts, such as the fairy shrimp Branchinecta paludosa O. F. Müller, 1788. Recently is B. paludosa widely distributed in the fishless lakes of the Arctic tundra of Eurasia between latitudes of 60 and 77 north; further populations exist as far south as the Tatra Mountains in C Europe (Saunders et al. 1993). It is very likely that B. paludosa is not the only aquatic macroinvertebrate that survived in alpine lakes of the Tatra Mts. after the last gla- ciation. In the present paper we report on a Chironomidae species with a distribution pattern indicating that it is most likely a relict of the last ice age in Slovakia. Interestingly it was recor- ded in the same lake as B. paludosa. 2 Material and methods The study lake, Vyšné Furkotské pleso (Fig. 1), is situated in the High Tatra Mountains (the ′ ′ West Carpathians; 49°10 N, 020°10 E). Comprehensive description of the relevant hydro- logy, soil and vegetation attributes of the Tatra Mountains can be found in Bitušík et al. (2006). For basic parameters of the study lake see Tab. 1. Chironomid pupal exuviae were collected from the water surface using a circular net (mesh size 0.25 mm). The collected material was preserved with 4 % formaldehyde and transferred to laboratory where organisms were hand sorted. After mounting exuviae on slides, specimens were identified using a compound microscope (400× magnification with phase contrast). Langton (1991) and Langton & Visser (2003) were used as identification literature. The mater- ial is deposited in the Department of Biology and Ecology, Matej Bel University, Banská Bystrica, Slovakia.