Some Insects Can Tolerate Salt Water.
Although the salt in seawater probably poses serious problems for many insects,
examples from the Diptera show remarkable adaptations for salt
water tolerance.
Salt water has an osmolarity of about 35 parts per thousand.
A freshwater species of midge tolerates less than a third of this salt concentration.
In contrast, the salt marsh mosquitos can tolerate salinities of up to 3x
this concentration!! However, flies in the Family Ephydridae and some species
of water boatmen exhibit the highest known salinity tolerance of any insects,
being able to survive in saturated salt water.
So, the ocean's salinity alone probably cannot explain the absence
of insects from the ocean.
The ocean is a very deep body of water and no insect lives beneath the surface of the open
ocean.
Hypothesis 2: See if insects can survive the deep.
Back to the hypotheses page
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