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Lateral view of a Male Baetis (Baetidae) (Blue-Winged Olive) Mayfly Dun from Mystery Creek #43 in New York
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.

Case view of a Pycnopsyche guttifera (Limnephilidae) (Great Autumn Brown Sedge) Caddisfly Larva from the Yakima River in Washington
It's only barely visible in one of my pictures, but I confirmed under the microscope that this one has a prosternal horn and the antennae are mid-way between the eyes and front of the head capsule.

I'm calling this one Pycnopsyche, but it's a bit perplexing. It seems to key definitively to at least Couplet 8 of the Key to Genera of Limnephilidae Larvae. That narrows it down to three genera, and the case seems wrong for the other two. The case looks right for Pycnopsyche, and it fits one of the key characteristics: "Abdominal sternum II without chloride epithelium and abdominal segment IX with only single seta on each side of dorsal sclerite." However, the characteristic "metanotal sa1 sclerites not fused, although often contiguous" does not seem to fit well. Those sclerites sure look fused to me, although I can make out a thin groove in the touching halves in the anterior half under the microscope. Perhaps this is a regional variation.

The only species of Pycnopsyche documented in Washington state is Pycnopsyche guttifera, and the colors and markings around the head of this specimen seem to match very well a specimen of that species from Massachusetts on Bugguide. So I am placing it in that species for now.

Whatever species this is, I photographed another specimen of seemingly the same species from the same spot a couple months later.
27" brown trout, my largest ever. It was the sub-dominant fish in its pool. After this, I hooked the bigger one, but I couldn't land it.
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Mayfly Species Nixe kennedyi

Where & when

In 8 records from GBIF, adults of this species have been collected during July (63%), June (13%), August (13%), and September (13%).

Species Range

Physical description

Most physical descriptions on Troutnut are direct or slightly edited quotes from the original scientific sources describing or updating the species, although there may be errors in copying them to this website. Such descriptions aren't always definitive, because species often turn out to be more variable than the original describers observed. In some cases, only a single specimen was described! However, they are useful starting points.

Male Spinner

Described in Needham et al (1935) as Heptagenia kennedyi
Body length: 7-8 mm
Wing length: 9 mm

A pale species; penes with an erect apical lobe and two pairs of median spines, also small paired spines near tip of the longer of these.

Head pale; a few slight dark dots on clypeus. Thorax light brown; prothorax tinged with smoky posteriorly. Legs pale; no dark markings at bases of coxae or femora. Fore femora and tibiae tinged with black at apices; basal fore tarsal joint 1/6 as long as the second. Wings vitreous; venation colorless. Abdomen pale hyaline; tergites tinged with smoky along the posterior margins, giving the appearance of faint bands. Third joint of forceps considerably longer than the fourth joint, these two together as long as or longer than the second joint.

The colorless veins and the long third joint of the forceps would seem to ally this species with the inconspicua-lucidipennis (now synonyms of Nixe inconspicua - Nixe lucidpennis) group, but the penes are different from others of this group, bearing a superficial resemblance (according to the published figure reproduced in fig. 96) to the maculipennis (now a synonym of Leucrocuta maculipennis) group.


Start a Discussion of Nixe kennedyi

References

  • Needham, James G., Jay R. Traver, and Yin-Chi Hsu. 1935. The Biology of Mayflies. Comstock Publishing Company, Inc.

Mayfly Species Nixe kennedyi

Species Range
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