Salmonflies
Pteronarcys californica
The giant Salmonflies of the Western mountains are legendary for their proclivity to elicit consistent dry-fly action and ferocious strikes.
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This one pretty clearly keys to Kogotus, but it also looks fairly different from specimens I caught in the same creek about a month later in the year. With only one species of the genus known in Washington, I'm not sure about the answer to this ID.
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This topic is about the Arthropod Class Crustacea-Malacostraca
Crustaceans are classified as one of those inconvenient intermediate taxonomic levels, the subphylum. The varieties of interest to trout anglers are in the class Malacostraca.It contains the orders of scuds (Amphipoda), sowbugs (Isopoda), opossum or mysis shrimp (Mysida), and crayish (Decapoda). Crayfish and scuds are both extremely important trout prey.
Example specimens
DMM
Posts: 34
Posts: 34
DMM on Nov 29, 2006November 29th, 2006, 2:46 pm EST
Malacostraca is a class but Crustacea is a subphylum
David
Troutnut on Nov 30, 2006November 30th, 2006, 5:38 pm EST
Yeah, I mention that on this page.
I decided not to include all the sub-this and infra-that taxonomic levels on this site and stick to the ones covered in high school biology, because it makes the navigation much easier and it's sufficient for anglers' purposes.
For the rare cases in which some well-known taxon falls on a more obscure level (like crustaceans, damselflies, and dragonflies), I've appended or prepended it to the listed taxon with a hyphen and explained the details in the corresponding description. It's not the most graceful system but it works.
I decided not to include all the sub-this and infra-that taxonomic levels on this site and stick to the ones covered in high school biology, because it makes the navigation much easier and it's sufficient for anglers' purposes.
For the rare cases in which some well-known taxon falls on a more obscure level (like crustaceans, damselflies, and dragonflies), I've appended or prepended it to the listed taxon with a hyphen and explained the details in the corresponding description. It's not the most graceful system but it works.
Jason Neuswanger, Ph.D.
Troutnut and salmonid ecologist
Troutnut and salmonid ecologist
DMM
Posts: 34
Posts: 34
DMM on Dec 1, 2006December 1st, 2006, 2:40 am EST
Sorry about that, I guess I missed that explanation.
David