Blue-winged Olives
Baetis
Tiny Baetis mayflies are perhaps the most commonly encountered and imitated by anglers on all American trout streams due to their great abundance, widespread distribution, and trout-friendly emergence habits.
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I caught this tiny larva without a case, but it seems to key pretty clearly to to Glossosomatidae. From there, the lack of sclerites on the mesonotum points to either Glossosoma or Anagapetus. Although it's difficult to see in a 2D image from the microscope, it's pretty clear in the live 3D view that the pronotum is only excised about 1/3 of its length to accommodate the forecoxa, not 2/3, which points to Glossosoma at Couplet 5 of the Key to Genera of Glossosomatidae Larvae.
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Hendricksons, Sulphurs, PMDs
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This common name refers to only one genus. Click its scientific name to learn more.
Mayfly Genus Ephemerella
These are pretty much always called Hendricksons, Sulphurs, PMDs.
This genus contains the legendary Hendricksons and Sulphurs of the East and the equally important Pale Morning Duns of western waters.
No scientific name in American angling literature is more renowned and at the same time capable of more confusion than the genus name "Ephemerella." It is important that anglers have a good overall grasp of its taxonomic history if they are to make any sense out of the rich literary heritage involving this mayfly name.
By the time American angling literature began to take serious note of entomology in the decades of the early to mid 20th century, Ephemerella was considered a "super-genus" in the family Baetidae, containing all of the important species to anglers in the subfamily Ephemerellinae. Taxonomists organized them by association with "type" species that were referred to as "groups" within this very large and unruly genus.
This organizational structure held sway until the 70's when they were recognized as separate from the Baetidae with their own family, the Ephemerellidae. The "groups" (after a little name changing and reorganization) were given subgenus status, but in conformance with taxonomical convention,the nomenclature retained the use of the name Ephemerella when referring to individual species genus status. More change occurred towards the end of the century as consensus formed around the subgenera achieving full generic status. The broad use of Ephemerella was then dropped in favor of the new generic names.
These changes were necessary in that they addressed many problems exposed in older taxonomies. Unfortunately, all during this period the changes were reported with varying degrees of accuracy and acceptance. For anglers this was exacerbated by the continued use and reliance on older entomology texts in many circles. Be that as it may, recent or updated angler entomologies now recognize that many of the old Ephemerella species are spread out among several genera in the Ephemerellidae family. These include the various Blue-Winged Olives and Western Green Drakes of the Drunella genus as well as several important species scattered in genera like Attenella and Serratella, to name a few.
Despite these revisions in classification, the Ephemerella genus still contains arguably the most important species in North America, and remains a "super-genus" to anglers.
There is a lot of variation; refer to the genus species hatch pages for details.
No scientific name in American angling literature is more renowned and at the same time capable of more confusion than the genus name "Ephemerella." It is important that anglers have a good overall grasp of its taxonomic history if they are to make any sense out of the rich literary heritage involving this mayfly name.
By the time American angling literature began to take serious note of entomology in the decades of the early to mid 20th century, Ephemerella was considered a "super-genus" in the family Baetidae, containing all of the important species to anglers in the subfamily Ephemerellinae. Taxonomists organized them by association with "type" species that were referred to as "groups" within this very large and unruly genus.
This organizational structure held sway until the 70's when they were recognized as separate from the Baetidae with their own family, the Ephemerellidae. The "groups" (after a little name changing and reorganization) were given subgenus status, but in conformance with taxonomical convention,the nomenclature retained the use of the name Ephemerella when referring to individual species genus status. More change occurred towards the end of the century as consensus formed around the subgenera achieving full generic status. The broad use of Ephemerella was then dropped in favor of the new generic names.
These changes were necessary in that they addressed many problems exposed in older taxonomies. Unfortunately, all during this period the changes were reported with varying degrees of accuracy and acceptance. For anglers this was exacerbated by the continued use and reliance on older entomology texts in many circles. Be that as it may, recent or updated angler entomologies now recognize that many of the old Ephemerella species are spread out among several genera in the Ephemerellidae family. These include the various Blue-Winged Olives and Western Green Drakes of the Drunella genus as well as several important species scattered in genera like Attenella and Serratella, to name a few.
Despite these revisions in classification, the Ephemerella genus still contains arguably the most important species in North America, and remains a "super-genus" to anglers.
There is a lot of variation; refer to the genus species hatch pages for details.
This is the most widespread species of Ephemerella, and also the most abundant in some places, but nobody I've talked to seemed to know what its duns looked like, and there were no pictures of its duns online or in any angling books. That mystery is solved with this male dun, which hatched from a definitively identified nymph.
This spinner molted from a dun after being photographed, and the dun form is listed here as a separate specimen. I've rarely found a more cooperative and photogenic mayfly.
This small Ephemerella invaria nymph was at least a month away from emergence.
See 156 more specimens...