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3. Please Identify

I found this in The Little Juniata. Is it next year's Cahill? It looks like a stenonema to my untrained eyes. I guess I need more detail in the photo.

Bruce-

Hard to tell for sure from your pic but it looks like it probably is. Or possibly Maccaffertium.

Link for Stenonema:http://bugguide.net/node/view/250236/bgimage

Link for Maccaffertium:http://bugguide.net/node/view/532697/bgimage

Maccaffertium pulchellum

Bruce-



Next time, you might want to photograph a mayfly nymph in one of these with enough water in it to fully cover the nymph. It makes a world of difference.

Roger-

that advice on placing nymphs in water is one of the neatest tips I've heard on aquatic insect photography. The one and only time I tried to shoot pictures (of Drunella C. nymphs) they'd gotten pretty well desiccated by the time I got things set up...and if kept wet they can be returned to the river if need be.

Really wondering this one, how many Troutnuts are 'real' Entomologists, Aquatic Biologists or professionals of some type? Gotta be more than a few from what I've read over the couple years I've been around.

Things are pretty slow in W. MI, waiting for Steelhead to make a real appearance- its been ones and twos here and there.

Roguerat aka Mark N.

I Peter 5:7 'Cast your cares upon Him...'

Roguerat-

Well, while I certainly enjoy studying and photographing aquatic insects I dropped out of school at the end of seventh grade and never looked back. I try not to let it get in the way of continuing to learn.

Thanks, Roguerat.

Expanding on your comment just a bit, the whitish background provided by the inside of a jar lid makes it far easier to discern identifying characters of a contrastingly darker mayfly nymph, and fully covering it with water allows appendages like gills and tails to assume their natural positions, as opposed to sticking to its body.

As to wondering how many Troutnuts are aquatic entomologists, etc., I am aware of several regular contributors here who are PhD entomologists, and are considered experts in their respective specialties, and suspect there may be numerous others with similar (or somewhat lesser) credentials.

Well I certainly do not have the academic credentials of others here. But I have worked as an aquatic biologist for 18 yrs. some
of that time as a taxonomist some as an aquatic biologist doing everything from grant writing to streambank restoration to water quality monitoring which involved chemical, biological and habitat sampling and now unfortunately I mostly mange people that do that kind of work. Every now and then I subject them to me going with them in the field. And I do QC/QA on their bug identifications. Oh yeah, I also guide fly fisherman...

Those poor souls! :) I've been "out in the field" with you and it almost got me killed...At least, I almost had to sleep in the car. :)

From all the pics you post etc, I don't think you even know where your office really is.

Spence (the survivor of the Coburn storm of April 2013)...the beers after were nice.

Eric, your career sounds similar to mine, although I have managed to stay out in the field and avoided "operating a desk" except for reports I write on my own field work. I do have a MS in entomology but have not done nearly as much work with that degree as with my BS in botany (yes, this explains all the wildflower pics), though I have had a few benthic macroinvert projects recently including one this summer. I did almost get a PhD in aquatic entomology - I got very interested in the whole benthics as biological indicators thing and even did a substantial amount of midge larval ID (to genus at least) - but I had a horrible advisor who basically gave me no help or guidance, or financial assistance, and ended up getting really turned off by academia. So, I went into consulting, and now teaching as well. I do a fair amount of aquatics work but more in the terrestrial realm, including entomology too...

Jonathon