Much of the work with mermithids has focused on
species descriptions of terrestrial and aquatic species,
with little emphasis on their biology and life cycles
There are a number of books and reviews that provide
detailed coverage on this matter, and should be consulted
for a detail description of these topics. Some of
these are covered by Kaiser (1978, 1991); Gordon
(1984); Petersen (1984); Poinar (1975, 1983). Fig. 3
shows the number of publications dealing with mermithid
research since the creation of SIP. The 1970’s and
early 1980’s were peak years, largely due to studies