1. Troutnut Forum
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2. Get Bugs Identified
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3. need help on this one

Thanks everyone, just seemed to dark to me..

Just to mix things up a bit, and to spark some discussion, I'll throw the North American genera Habrophlebia and Habrophlebiodes into the mix here. In hand, how do you tell the duns of these, and most Paraleptophlebia apart?

Hint: I think one may be a little darker than the others and usually has more of an abdominal colour pattern.

What about wing shapes? Is size important in this instance?

Luke -

I think we would be going a bit too far in the other direction with those generic possibilities. They're mostly under 5 mm, aren't they? I'm estimating the size of this critter at somewhere in the 7 - 8mm range. It is difficult to go by wing and body characters as the photo is blurry and stretched. If it weren't, I'd be looking closely at the tails and the hind wings for costal projection shape and location (if any) and also the forelegs.

As far as the body color hint, Habrophlebia vibrans (the only species of that genus known for North America) has a unique pattern of white triangles with a dark background on the middle 5 terga. Their opposite 5 ventral segs are almost solid white. Is that what you are referring to?

I suppose the species Leptophlebia johnsoni would have been an option if this specimen were a little larger, as it runs smaller than others in its genus. They can be fairly difficult to tell from larger Paraleptophlebia specimens when the latter approach 10mm.