Midges have a variety of names, non-biting midges, Chironomidae, or Mighty Midge. These small insects live in water or, more rarely, in moist soils. These are the insects I study in the tethysphere. I will tell you tales of midges from near and far and even provide scientific citations and few other types of citations for those of you who need some interesting reading.
To begin, midges can be found in rivers such as the one in this photo. They are very small, often just a few millimeters in length. The larva and pupa live in the water, but they emerge as adults to fly, mate, and die. They feed the tethysphere. They turn over nutrients in the bottoms of rivers and lakes. They carry the energy from water to land, crossing the ecotone. Midges live everywhere on earth, including the ocean and Antarctica and they have been in space.
I have traveled to Mongolia to study midges (http://clade.ansp.org/entomology/mongolia/) and am currently working with an exceptional group of researchers comparing large river ecosystems in North America and Mongolia with some extra attention paid to midges (www.macrorivers.org).
I have many tales to tell about the Mighty Midge.
Tethysphere 