Baetidae (Blue-Winged Olives) Mayfly Nymph Pictures

Mayflies

Caddisflies

Stoneflies

Classification

Kingdom Animalia (Animals)

» Phylum Arthropoda (Arthropods)

» Class Insecta (Insects)

» Order Ephemeroptera (Mayflies)

» Family Baetidae (Blue-Winged Olives)

This Baetis nymph is quite a bit larger than any of the others I found in winter 2004. Abdomen segment 5 is only slightly pale while 9 and 10 are quite pale. The tail is banded at the tip. Its body measures about 9mm long. It's much larger than the other Baetis specimens I collected, and it has quite well-developed wingpads.

It's most likely a mature nymph from a very early-hatching brood. It comes from the headwaters of a very small, very spring-fed Lake Superior tributary, which wasn't at all frozen despite very frigid temperatures and 3 feet of snow on the ground.

This mayfly was collected from Schacte Creek, Bayfield County on February 5th, 2004 and added to Troutnut.com on January 25th, 2006.

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Baetidae (Blue-Winged Olives) Mayfly Nymph from Schacte Creek, Bayfield County in Wisconsin

AuthorTroutnut

CameraOlympus C740UZ

Shown Full Size

AuthorTroutnut

CameraOlympus C740UZ

Shown Full Size

AuthorTroutnut

CameraOlympus C740UZ

Shown Full Size

AuthorTroutnut

CameraOlympus C740UZ

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Jargon Defined:

Abdomen: The rear and usually the longest (ten-segmented in mayflies) portion of an insect's body, to which the tails are attached.

Brood: When a species produces more than one generation per year, each one is called a brood.

Nymph: 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).