Updates from June 1, 2007
This fish almost got me into the coveted "20/20 club." It's a 20 inch brown caught on sulphur-flavored Galloup's Cripple tied on a size 18 3X-fine dry fly hook. It's also my biggest fish to date from the Catskills.
Date AddedJun 5, 2007
CameraPENTAX Optio WPi
Date AddedJun 5, 2007
CameraPENTAX Optio WPi
I didn't manage to collect a nymph, but here's the hollow
shuck (Shuck: The shed exoskeleton left over when an insect molts into its next stage or instar. Most often it describes the last nymphal or pupal skin exited during emergence into a winged adult.) left over from an emerged dun, showing the basic pattern of the nymph.
Date AddedJun 4, 2007
CameraPENTAX Optio WPi
Female Drunella tuberculata Mayfly Dun
View 14 PicturesI don't know for sure that this is Drunella tuberculata, but that's my best guess for now.
It certainly has a different look and much more robust body shape from Drunella lata duns I photographed a couple weeks earlier, so I doubt it's that species. Using distribution records to eliminate other choices narrows this down to Drunella tuberculata or Drunella walkeri.
Markings described for the abdominal sternites (Sternite: The bottom (ventral) part of a single segment on an insect's abdomen.) of the male spinner of Drunella tuberculata are suspiciously similar to those on this female dun. Also, this dun is 9.5mm long (my ruler pic isn't very good, but I'm basing this on measuring the real thing). The size range given in the old Allen & Edmunds keys for walkeri females is 7-8mm, while tuberculata is 9-11mm. For these reasons I'm sticking it in tuberculata for now.
This is the only Drunella mayfly I saw all day. I scooped it off the water as it emerged at around 7pm from a big Catskill tailwater. Female Penelomax septentrionalis Mayfly Dun
View 10 PicturesI'm confident this dun belongs to septentrionalis, because her legs are just too long for any other Ephemerellid, and her unusual mid-dorsal (Dorsal: Top.) stripe matches those of two easily identified nymphs I collected some miles downstream.
This really pretty mayfly was in kind of bad shape when I found it crippled on the surface, and bouncing around in my container with a bunch of green drakes didn't help.
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