1. Troutnut Forum
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2. Specimen Discussion
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3. Chimarra

Jason-

That would be Chimarra, most likely C. aterrima, but it could also be either C. obscura or C. socia. Based on that neat black egg mass visible in the ventral view photo, it would also appear that it's a female.

Although I have no handy key, there are good emergences of Chimarra in most of the medium-to-large Pocono streams in May. It is routine to see them clinging to the underside of low-hanging branches or woody debris along the streams.

I don't think this is a philopotamid, which lay their eggs singly instead of in large masses....

It is hard to tell from the picture but I would guess it is Micrasema or Lepidostoma, possibly Helicopsyche.

OK, I've moved it to Microsema for now.

Litobrancha-

What genus would this one be?

taxon i think they got that one right. kinda hard to tell from the pic though.

Folks - This one is indeed a difficult one. I would not conclude Micrasema because the photo shows too many spurs. And I would not conclude Philopotamid because of several characters, including the egg mass Litobrancha noted. How about Theliopsyche, a rarely collected Lepidostomatid? At least Theliopsyche has the furry spurs located as in the photos and a long basal antennal segment.

Folks - while I still think this is probably Theliopsyche, there was a brief mention of egg masses in this topic. I just ran into a nice specimen of Apatania incerta with the round egg mass still attached. I was going to attach a photo but couldn't figure out how to do it.
Are there instructions/procedures for attaching critter photos or is it not allowed?

dave

Dave-

The (unassisted) manner of posting a photo is inserting the following markup language, except use braces rather than curly braces:

{img src=http://...whatever.jpg}

Of course, this requires that the photo already be hosted on a server.

Alternatively, if one emails photos to Jason, he will host them on this server, and create a posting for you including the accompanying email verbiage. However, since starting grad school, his response would probably be somewhat slower.

Roger - thanks. I don't have server access and I understand the demands of grad school so I will leave the reader to their imagination. The egg mass of Apatania incerta is also spherical.

dave

Dave-

There are free services like PhotoBucket, which you can use to host photos. I'd certainly like to see any critter photos you have, and I suspect there are others who would as well.