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3. Need help identifying this nymph please!!, Page 3

Cussfly -


Yes, I noticed the photo artifact too. I think the racing stripe that Paul was referring to is the very wide one that runs dorsally on Peltoperla. That is what I was referring to anyway. Here's a link to a photo that looks like yours. http://www.troutnut.com/specimen/487


I'd be very interested to see photo evidence of the "big three" and your reports on their fishable numbers. One of those clingers in your photos could very well be a quill gordon. The three tailed one most likely isn't a march brown, though. In fact, I don't think it's possible to tell for sure from evidence in the photo if it's even in the same genus. The crawler nymph is probably invaria (prev. rotunda) unless the leg banding is no longer a reliable character. Luke?

I see now that the "racing stripe" is from the flash. The Peltoperla I knew from NY were stripe-less too.

Paul -

Ah.. The racing stripe I thought you were talking about was the wide pale areas between the wingbuds that connect on the thorax. It could certainly be described that way while holding one in the hand. See this photo of a Peltoperla species http://bugguide.net/node/view/529617.

Sometimes the pale areas aren't that stark, so it is not necessarily a reliable character. Often they are just slightly paler. What is dependable are "...very clear dark pigment spots [on the paler areas] located lateral to [the] ecdysial suture on [the] meso- and metanota" (Stewart and Stark, Nymphs of North American Stonefly Genera, p. 292.). Those spots are a defining characteristic of the genus Peltoperla; they are not found on Tallaperla nymphs.

I think we confused each other over the family name Peltoperlidae vs. the genus name Peltoperla. Your find in NY was most likely Tallaperla maria, being the only species reported from NY (as of 2009) according to B.P. Stark, R.W. Baumann, and R.E. DeWalt. NY also has the species Peltoperla arcuata, but as discussed, it isn't sold brown.

Cussfly - SC has more diversity than NY so there are more species that could fit the characters observable in the photo. I still think it is probably Tallaperla maria, but we'd need to turn it over and get a close up of the gills to know for sure.

Yes, they were solid rootbeer brown. Tallaperla it is.

Cussfly -

This specimen of yours is buried pretty far back in the thread.





The best I could answer at the time was that it was a perlodid of the Perlodinae or Springfly subfamily. I recognized it, but couldn't remember the name. It's Helopicus subvarians, or Masked Springfly. It is aptly named as the head markings are quite distinctive.