Free Desktop Backgrounds, Page 6

Mayflies

Caddisflies

Stoneflies

I've taken a few of my favorite pictures and made them into nice desktop backgrounds. It's really easy to set one of these as your background. Just click the link closest to your screen resolution below a picture to save it to your hard drive. Then (if you're using Windows XP) right-click on your desktop, select "Properties," go to the "Desktop" tab, hit the "Browse" button, select the image from wherever you just saved it, and click "Apply" and "Okay".

Your screen resolution is .

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This pretty little dun was part of a sparse midsummer evening hatch on a large Catskill river.

I could not identify it by following a species key step by step, but I tentatively keyed it to the genus Nixe, and based on distribution maps and physical descriptions the most likely species is Nixe inconspicua.

This desktop background was created from a picture of this Male Nixe inconspicua Mayfly Dun.


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This Leptophlebia cupida dun was extremely cooperative, and it molted into a spinner for me in front of the camera. Here I have a few dun pictures and one spinner picture, and I've put the entire molting sequence in an article.

This desktop background was created from a picture of this Male Leptophlebia cupida Mayfly Dun.


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A thick mating swarm of Tricorythodes mayfly spinners hovers the West Branch of the Delaware near Hale Eddy one early fall morning. View the picture full-size and you'll be able to make out the wings and tails on most of those little white dots.

This was one of many such clouds visible all up and down the river. The mayflies were impressive, but the trout did not hold up their end of the bargain -- there was not a rise in sight.

This desktop background was created from a picture of Tricorythodes.


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I went to great comical lengths to swipe this spinner from the air with a little aquarium net I carry with me while I'm fishing. Siphloplecton basale spinners fly fast and high over the riffles, and there are never very many of them, so they're difficult to catch.

This desktop background was created from a picture of this Male Siphloplecton basale Mayfly Spinner.


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I got several really nice pictures of this spinner. I also collected a female on the same trip.

This desktop background was created from a picture of this Male Isonychia bicolor Mayfly Spinner.


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I got several really nice pictures of this spinner. I also collected a female on the same trip.

This desktop background was created from a picture of this Male Isonychia bicolor Mayfly Spinner.


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I collected this female together with a male.

This desktop background was created from a picture of this Female Isonychia bicolor Mayfly Spinner.


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This desktop background was created from a picture of this Female Epeorus vitreus Mayfly Spinner.


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This is my favorite underwater picture so far. It shows a bunch of Simuliidae (black fly) larvae clinging to a rock and swinging in the fast current. There are also at least four visible mayfly nymphs, probably in the family Baetidae.

This desktop background was created from this underwater picture.


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I found this lone Hexagenia atrocaudata dun fluttering by herself on the surface of a small, still stretch of river one evening as I paddled home from fishing for smallmouths in the warm August weather.

This desktop background was created from a picture of this Female Hexagenia atrocaudata Mayfly Dun.

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Jargon Defined:

Dun: 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.

Larvae: Many classes of aquatic insects, such as caddisflies, midges, craneflies, dobsonflies, alderflies, and many more, are known as "larvae" rather than "nymphs" in their juvenile stages. They have mostly soft bodies rather than hard exoskeletons. These insects also advance through a "pupa" stage before reaching adulthood.

Molting: When aquatic insects with hard exoskeletons (like mayfly and stonefly nymphs) grow bigger, their exoskeleton does not grow with them. Instead they grow a new, larger one underneath and shed the old one when it's too small. This process is called molting.

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).

Spinner: There are two winged stages of adult mayflies. They emerge from the water as duns, molt on land (usually) into their fully mature stage, spinners. As spinners, they mate, lay eggs, and die.