Tiny Western Olives

Mayflies

Caddisflies

Stoneflies

Scientific Names

Match	Scientific Name
	Plauditus punctiventris
	Apobaetis futilis
	Iswaeon anoka

Like most common names, "Tiny Western Olive" can refer to more than one taxon. For more detail click through to the scientific names.

Mayfly Species Plauditus punctiventris

These are pretty much always called Tiny Western Olives.

This species produces very strong hatches on fertile Western spring creeks. They are extremely small mayflies but may be extremely numerous.

Mayfly Species Apobaetis futilis

These are often called Tiny Western Olives.

This hind wingless little mayfly was formerly known as Pseudocloeon futile and can hatch in excellent numbers in certain western locales.

Mayfly Species Iswaeon anoka

These are sometimes called Tiny Western Olives.

This tiny hind-wingless Midwestern and Western species can produce excellent hatches because it is so extremely abundant. It appears in previous angling literature under the former names Pseudocloeon anoka in the Midwest and Pseudocloeon edmundsi for its western synonym (Synonym: A former name of a taxon, usually a species. Entomologists frequently discover that two insects originally described as different species are one in the same, and they drop one of the names. The dropped name is said to be a synonym of the remaining name. These changes take a while to trickle into the common knowledge of anglers; for example, Baetis vagans is now a synonym of Baetis tricaudatus.). Its bright green duns are unmistakable. In the West they can also be an equally unmistakable bright almost fluorescent chartreuse, especially as nymphs. They are very common in the Northwest and Rocky Mountain states, with their population densities giving way to the similarly tiny and hind-wingless (though more somber colored) Acentrella species in Southern Oregon, California and the Southwest.

Iswaeon anoka was first brought to the attention of the angling community (as Pseudocloeon anoka) by famous angling author and columnist Joe Brooks. Back in the late 60's he wrote an article for Outdoor Life magazine extolling the work of Doug Swisher and Carl Richards in their forthcoming and groundbreaking book, Selective Trout. This species was featured as the model for their now famous version of the "No-Hackle" dry fly and imitative parachute patterns, sparking a revolution in fly design for hyper-selective trout. The rest as they say, is history...

Jargon Defined:

Duns: Mayflies have two adult stages. They first emerge from the water as duns (scientifically known as the subimago stage). They then molt into the spinner (imago) stage, in which they mate and die. Sometimes the word "dun" is confusingly used to refer to a brownish gray color in fly tying materials.

Nymphs: The juvenile, underwater stages of mayflies, stoneflies, dragonflies, and damselflies and other aquatic insects whose juvenile stages are covered by hard exoskeletons. The word can also refer to the fishing flies which imitate these creatures, in which case it is used as a blanket term for flies imitating any underwater stage of an invertebrate (except for crayfish and leeches).

Synonym: A former name of a taxon, usually a species. Entomologists frequently discover that two insects originally described as different species are one in the same, and they drop one of the names. The dropped name is said to be a synonym of the remaining name. These changes take a while to trickle into the common knowledge of anglers; for example, Baetis vagans is now a synonym of Baetis tricaudatus.