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Artistic view of a Male Pteronarcys californica (Pteronarcyidae) (Giant Salmonfly) Stonefly Adult from the Gallatin River in Montana
Salmonflies
Pteronarcys californica

The giant Salmonflies of the Western mountains are legendary for their proclivity to elicit consistent dry-fly action and ferocious strikes.

Dorsal view of a Zapada cinctipes (Nemouridae) (Tiny Winter Black) Stonefly Nymph from the Yakima River in Washington
Nymphs of this species were fairly common in late-winter kick net samples from the upper Yakima River. Although I could not find a key to species of Zapada nymphs, a revision of the Nemouridae family by Baumann (1975) includes the following helpful sentence: "2 cervical gills on each side of midline, 1 arising inside and 1 outside of lateral cervical sclerites, usually single and elongate, sometimes constricted but with 3 or 4 branches arising beyond gill base in Zapada cinctipes." This specimen clearly has the branches and is within the range of that species.
27" brown trout, my largest ever. It was the sub-dominant fish in its pool. After this, I hooked the bigger one, but I couldn't land it.
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By Bnewell on July 18th, 2012, 9:27 am EDT
This stonefly is one that is fairly common in higher altitude lakes, especially in western North America. I have collected it in higher lakes in Glacier National Park, Montana. Dick Baumann tells me that in a recent publication this stonefly has been renamed Skwala compacta.

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Taxon
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Plano, TX

Posts: 1311
Taxon on Jul 19, 2012July 19th, 2012, 7:45 pm EDT
Hi Bob,

When checking out Skwala compacta, I noticed that the Valid Stonefly Names for North America list maintained by Ed DeWalt has not been updated since 3/19/2009. Do you have any insight into why that might be?
Best regards,
Roger Rohrbeck
www.FlyfishingEntomology.com

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