**3.4 Non-biting midges on the glacier**

To our knowledge, the only aquatic insects found permanently colonizing the ice are non-biting midges of the genus *Diamesa* in temperate zones and the stonefly *Andiperla willinki* (family Gripopterygiidae) in South America [43]. Larvae of *Diamesa steinboecki* and *Diamesa latitarsis* were collected on one Alpine glacier (2625–2650 m a.s.l., Agola, Brenta Dolomites, Italy), surviving a summer temperature ranging for 0.07 to 0.19°C. Larvae of *Diamesa* were collected also on Yala glacier (5100–5700 m a.s.l., Nepal, Himalayas [44, 45]), growing in melt-water drainage channels under the ice and feeding on blue-green algae and bacteria. They eat the scares allochthonous detritus transported by the wind and left by the glacier in the ice melt waters. Typically, primary food resources in eukryal consist of dust (allochthonous particles or airborne detritus) and algae (various species of cyanophytes and green algae), and fungi and bacteria associated with algae and detritus [46]. Adults were brachypterous (characterized by reduced wings), unable to fly, walking at temperatures as low as −16°C on the surface of the glacier and in small cavities beneath it.
