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.
This Skwala nymph still has a couple months left to go before hatching, but it's still a good representative of its species, which was extremely abundant in my sample for a stonefly of this size. It's obvious why the Yakima is known for its Skwala hatch.
Taxon on Oct 29, 2010October 29th, 2010, 3:18 pm EDT
Luke-
From your posting, it appears that what was previously Caudatella heterocaudata and its (3) subspecies are now Caudatella heterocaudata (with no subspecies), and (new species), Caudatella columbiella. Is that correct?
Konchu on Oct 30, 2010October 30th, 2010, 2:48 am EDT
columbiella was an old species that was synonymized with heterocaudata; i think it is a separate species
circia, californica and heterocaudata were all subspecies of heterocaudata
it turns out that californica is the same thing as columbiella
circia does not hold up as a nominal entity under most current philosophies. at the time it was described, the authors acknowledged that it probably interbred with other variants of heterocaudata, and the defining characters varied even in the population at the type locale. so, it should be considered the same species as heterocaudata