Important news -- and this year's favorite photos

I regret that my postings have dwindled -- if you live in Virginia you surely know why: rain!  This past week we've had 5 inches of rain where I live, consequently, our streams are out of control: high, fast, and muddy.  More rain -- in the form of thunderstorms from which the rain falls in buckets -- is in the forecast for the foreseeable future.  All of us are longing for an extended period of dry, sunny days, and until we see those conditions, I'll be hard pressed to get back to the work of looking for and photographing aquatic insects.

In the meantime -- one bit of news from Steven Beaty:  "The Ephemeroptera of North Carolina" has been revised and updated.  It is available at: http://portal.ncdenr.org/web/wq/taxonmanual.  For those of you who want to do it, the document can be downloaded and printed.  It has doubled in size from roughly 50 pages to roughly 100 pages.  The documents on "Plecoptera" (stoneflies) and "Trichoptera" (caddisflies) will receive the same treatment in the near future.

Until I can return to the streams, I plan to work on several projects for future postings.  I want to assemble EPT lists for 1) the Rapidan River, 2) the small, first order streams in Sugar Hollow, and 3) possibly the Rivanna River.

Back with those soon.  Here are some of my favorite photos from the recent winter/spring season.  Most -- but not all -- of these taxa are insects I've seen for the first time this year.

I. Mayflies (Ephemeroptera)

1. Pronggilled mayfly, genus Leptophlebia.

2. Spiny crawler mayfly, Drunella walkeri.

3. Spiny crawler mayfly, Drunella tuberculata: an unusual shot looking directly at the face and head.

4. Spiny crawler mayfly, Ephemerella dorothea.

5. Flatheaded mayfly, Leucrocuta juno.

6. Flatheaded mayfly, Epeorus fragilis.

7. Small minnow mayfly, Heterocloeon amplum.  Unusual colors.

8. Small minnow mayfly, Acentrella nadineae.

II. Stoneflies (Plecoptera)

1. Common stonefly, Agnetina annulipes.

2. Common stonefly, Paragnetina fumosa.

3. Perlodid stonefly, Isoperla davisi.

4. Perlodid stonefly, Isoperla montana.

5. Perlodid stonefly, Isoperla orata.

III. Caddisflies (Trichoptera)

1. Humpless casemaker, Brachycentrus appalachia (top) and a Little mountain casemaker, Apatania incerta (bottom).

2. Little mountain casemaker, Apatania incerta.

3. Uenoid casemaker, Neophylax oligius.

4. Uenoid casemaker, Neophylax aniqua.  (Next to the case of a Northern casemaker, Pycnopsyche gentilis.)

5. Freeliving caddisfly larva, Rhyacophila fenestra/ledra.

6. Humpless casemaker, Micrasema charonis.