Blog & Latest Updates
Fly Fishing Articles
Insects by Common Name

Trout Streams & Rivers
Trout Pictures
Underwater Pictures

Desktop Backgrounds
Stream & Bug Videos
Image Use Pricing

Insect Order Ephemeroptera (Mayflies)

Mayflies

Caddisflies

Stoneflies

Taxonomic Navigation -?-

Kingdom Animalia (Animals)

» Phylum Arthropoda (Arthropods)

» Class Insecta (Insects)

» Order Ephemeroptera (Mayflies)

Family in Ephemeroptera
AmeletidaeBrown Duns	0	0
BaetidaeBlue-Winged Olives	0	10
BaetiscidaeArmored Mayflies	0	1
CaenidaeAngler's Curses	0	0
EphemerellidaeHendricksons, Sulphurs, PMDs, BWOs	0	37
EphemeridaeHexes and Big Drakes	0	3
HeptageniidaeMarch Browns, Cahills, Quill Gordons	0	11
IsonychiidaeSlate Drakes	0	0
LeptohyphidaeTricos	0	1
LeptophlebiidaeBlue Quills and Mahogany Duns	0	0
MetretopodidaePseudo-Gray Drakes	0	0
Neoephemeridae	0	0
PolymitarcyidaeWhite Flies	0	0
PotamanthidaeGolden Drakes	0	0
SiphlonuridaeGray Drakes	0	3

8 families aren't included.

Common Name

Match	Common Name
	Mayflies

Pictures Below ↓

This is page 8 of specimens of Ephemeroptera. Visit the main Ephemeroptera page for:

The behavior and habitat of Ephemeroptera.
67 underwater pictures of Ephemeroptera.

Pictures of 828 Mayfly Specimens:

Specimen Page:1...789...84

Male Leptophlebia cupida (Borcher Drake) Mayfly Dun

View 6 PicturesThis 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.

Collected May 27, 2005 from the Teal River in Wisconsin
Added to Troutnut.com by Troutnut on May 16, 2006

Female Ephemerella (Hendricksons, Sulphurs, PMDs) Mayfly Spinner

View 8 PicturesI've seen Ephemerella invaria with green egg sacs and Ephemerella subvaria with yellow one. This one seems too large for dorothea. So what is it? I'm not sure.

Many females of this species were gathered in tight clouds to lay their eggs over the riffles in a mid-sized Pocono stream right at dusk. It would have been a fishable spinner fall if I'd stuck around to wait for them.

Collected May 28, 2007 from Mystery Creek #42 in Pennsylvania
Added to Troutnut.com by Troutnut on June 4, 2007

Female Leptophlebia cupida (Borcher Drake) Mayfly Spinner

View 7 Pictures

Collected May 28, 2005 from the Namekagon River in Wisconsin
Added to Troutnut.com by Troutnut on May 24, 2006

Female Rhithrogena Mayfly Spinner

View 9 PicturesI'm very tentatively (see the connected forum thread) sticking this mayfly in Rhithrogena for now.

Collected June 7, 2007 from the West Branch of the Delaware River in New York
Added to Troutnut.com by Troutnut on June 8, 2007

Drunella cornuta (Large Blue-Winged Olive) Mayfly Nymph

View 7 Pictures

Collected June 5, 2005 from the Long Lake Branch of the White River in Wisconsin
Added to Troutnut.com by Troutnut on May 25, 2006

Female Leptophlebia (Black Quills and Blue Quills) Mayfly Dun

View 7 PicturesI collected this mayfly after user Al514 tipped me off to the presence of some Leptophlebia mayflies I didn't seem to have yet with his ID request of a male dun. This seems to be of the same species. I also collected a female spinner. Based on that spinner, I can tell that this is either Leptophlebia cupida or Leptophlebia nebulosa, but I can't tell which.

Unfortunately none of the specimens I collected made it through the hot, sunny day very well. So the pictures aren't great, but they're better than nothing.

Collected May 9, 2007 from Factory Brook in New York
Added to Troutnut.com by Troutnut on May 18, 2007

Female Maccaffertium vicarium (March Brown) Mayfly Spinner

View 7 PicturesI collected this mayfly on the same trip as a male of the same species. They are Maccaffertium vicarium mayflies of the type formerly known as Stenonema fuscom, the "Gray Fox."

Collected May 28, 2005 from the Namekagon River in Wisconsin
Added to Troutnut.com by Troutnut on May 24, 2006

Male Ephemera simulans (Brown Drake) Mayfly Spinner

View 7 Pictures

Collected June 2, 2005 from the Namekagon River in Wisconsin
Added to Troutnut.com by Troutnut on May 24, 2006

Female Procloeon (Tiny Sulphur Duns) Mayfly Dun

View 8 PicturesThis dun of a fairly large Baetidae species was one of only a couple I saw all evening.

Collected August 24, 2006 from Enfield Creek in New York
Added to Troutnut.com by Troutnut on August 27, 2006

Ephemerella aurivillii Mayfly Nymph

View 7 Pictures

Collected May 10, 2008 from the Chena River in Alaska
Added to Troutnut.com by Troutnut on April 20, 2011

Specimen Page:1...789...84

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.

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.

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.