**Mayfly Species Paraleptophlebia packii (Mahogany Dun)**

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Taxonomic Navigation -?-

Kingdom Animalia (Animals)

» Phylum Arthropoda (Arthropods)

» Class Insecta (Insects)

» Order Ephemeroptera (Mayflies)

» Family Leptophlebiidae (Blue Quills and Mahogany Duns)

» Genus Paraleptophlebia (Blue Quills and Mahogany Duns)

» Species packii (Mahogany Dun)

Common Name

Match	Common Name
	Mahogany Dun

This large western species is common in places. It is one of the few that has tusks and substitutes for the more common tusked Paraleptophlebia bicornuta in some locales, particularly the central Rockies in parts of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming where they have been documented. Telling the tusked species apart is very difficult and even entomological texts are largely ambiguous on the characters that differentiate the nymphs. Angling texts relying on gill morphology (Morphology: The form and structure of an organism, or the study of the form and structure of organisms.), terga pattern, and tusk shape are dubious at best. For now, the angler's best bet is to rely somewhat on documented distribution.

Where & When

Region: West

Time Of Year (?): Fall

Hatching Behavior

Time Of Day (?): Late morning through evening

Habitat: Slow pools

Spinner Behavior

Ernest Schwiebert reports in Matching the Hatch that the spinners return four days after emerging as duns.

Nymph Biology

Current Speed: Slow water

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Jargon Defined:

Duns: 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.

Morphology: The form and structure of an organism, or the study of the form and structure of organisms.

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).

Useful References:

Caucci, Al and Nastasi, Bob. 2004. Hatches II. The Lyons Press.

Knopp, Malcolm and Robert Cormier. 1997. Mayflies: An Angler's Study of Trout Water Ephemeroptera . The Lyons Press.

Schwiebert, Ernest G. 1955. Matching the Hatch. MacMillan Publishing Company.