Mayfly Species Paraleptophlebia guttata (Blue Quills)

This is a reddish brown species with small paired brown spots on the white middle segments of the abdomen. Top of head and thorax and end segments of abdomen shining blackish brown. Legs whitish with a touch of pale brown on the knees. Wings whitish including the stigmatic area and its cross veins. Costal cross veins obsolete except in the stigmatic area where they are about 12 in number; the middle ones longer, curving and sometimes forking.

Abdomen white on segments 2 to 7 with a row of little roundish brown spots in the spiracular area toward the hind angles of the segments and with a faint suggestion of clouds in the middle of the dorsum. Ganglia yellowish. Forceps white; the long basal segment not tapering so much as in other species but more parallel-sided or even a little widened in the middle. Penes broadly separated for half their length by a U-shaped notch, rounded on the distal ends with a large, recurved, external hook at the tip. The reflexed spur is long, white, and outcurved sinuously like a goat’s horn (see fig. 133). Tails white.

This species is very like P. mollis (now a synonym of Neoleptophlebia heteronea) in coloration, save for the spots on the white of the abdomen, and like Paraleptophlebia moerens in form of genitalia.