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3. Ephemerellidae

Ok, let's hear some guesses.

It's a picture, right?


What do I win?

My admiration and respect

Drunella cornuta, or what Gonzo would call the Olive Morning Dun.

Eric, those are awesome photos. I especially like the one with the eggs. Great!

It looks like the Cornuta to me. I say that only because it's one of the few olives I know that hatch this time of year. Is it a size 14 or 16?

Yeah I agree but another Troutnutter was not so sure when he saw them. They are a #16. I have run into other olives this time of year on other streams. Pine Creek in the Slate Run area has another big olive. D. tuberculata that is pretty abundant this time of year.

Eric may refer to me in his post above, and although his ID was never in question, what we saw confused me at first. These size 16 bugs were hatching one evening recently on a PA limestone. I’d only seen larger, size 14 specimens, and many books, such as Al Caucci’s Hatches, describe cornuta as a morning hatch, which had been my (limited) past experience. However, Ann Miller, in her excellent little book (thanks Spence), describes hatches of “lata, cornuta, cornutella, and walkeri” that occur in “warm summer evenings and sometimes in the early mornings” and she lists sizes from 6-10 mm. (Caucci lists both size 14 and 16 for cornuta in his book.) It appears that variety is the spice of Drunella. Eric suggested that ultimately it’s best to watch more and trust experience over what one may read—helpful advice.

:)