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Male Rhithrogena hageni (Western Black Quill) Mayfly Spinner Pictures



 I collected this spinner from the trail (old logging road) above a whitewater canyon on a small stream in the Cascades. I'm fairly positive on the ID: in Traver 1935 it keys out to Rhithrogena doddsi, which is now a 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.) of Rhithrogena hageni. The penes (Penes: The paired genital structures of most male insects, which vary widely in form and are one of the main characteristics used for species identification.) differ slightly from the drawing in that book, but they're a very close match to drawing from the original hageni description in Eaton 1885.

I'm using its ID to put a species ID on a female dun and mature nymph collected on the same trip. I'm also using this one's ID for a specimen with seemingly identical reproductive anatomy from Montana.

Lastly, I have included here a couple pictures of the genitalia of a different specimen collected on the same evening, from the same river, and I think even the same swarm (although I don't recall that 100 %). They're angled a bit differently, and I couldn't locate the mid-ventral (Ventral: Toward or on the bottom.) spines, but I'm guessing I'm just seeing intra-species variation.


This mayfly was collected from Mystery Creek #249 on July 4th, 2020 and added to Troutnut.com on July 12th, 2020.

Ventral view  Male Rhithrogena hageni (Western Black Quill) Mayfly Spinner from Mystery Creek #249 in Washington
Ventral view
Dorsal view  Male Rhithrogena hageni (Western Black Quill) Mayfly Spinner from Mystery Creek #249 in Washington
Dorsal view
Ventral view, still attached, with claspers  Male Rhithrogena hageni (Western Black Quill) Mayfly Spinner from Mystery Creek #249 in Washington
Ventral view, still attached, with claspers
Different specimen to show variation -- dorsal view.  Male Rhithrogena hageni (Western Black Quill) Mayfly Spinner from Mystery Creek #249 in Washington
Different specimen to show variation -- dorsal view.
Different specimen to show variation -- ventral view.  Male Rhithrogena hageni (Western Black Quill) Mayfly Spinner from Mystery Creek #249 in Washington
Different specimen to show variation -- ventral view.

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