Female Drunella tuberculata Mayfly Dun Pictures
Classification
Kingdom Animalia (Animals)
» Phylum Arthropoda (Arthropods)
» Class Insecta (Insects)
» Order Ephemeroptera (Mayflies)
» Family Ephemerellidae (Hendricksons, Sulphurs, PMDs, BWOs)
» Genus Drunella (Blue-Winged Olives)
» Species tuberculata
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.
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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.
This mayfly was collected from the Catskills on June 1st, 2007 and added to Troutnut.com on June 8th, 2007.
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Recent Discussions of this Dun
Anyone recognize this Drunella? 8 Replies »
I'm a bit puzzled about this one. See the specimen description for details. I know female duns are awful for identification, but this is the only one of its species I could find. Would any of you Ephemerellid experts (Konchu!!) care to take a guess?
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