Monday, April 7, 2014

Isoperlas: We may soon have names for our three unidentified species


We've now found three Isoperlas that, to date, remain undescribed and unnamed in the keys we use for Perlodid identification.  One is the nymph in the photo at the top of the page, found last spring in Buck Mt. Creek (also in the Upper Doyles and Rapidan rivers): the other two, pictured below, were found in the headwater streams in Sugar Hollow.

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Over the weekend I asked Steven Beaty if there have been any changes in the identification of Isoperla nr. holochlora and in the issue of Isoperla montana/n.sp.  He has relayed some fantastic news (well, for those of us who study these things!).   Boris Kondratieff and Stanley Szcytko have completed work on a revision of the Eastern Nearctic Isoperla and their manuscript is under review.  Beaty notes, "This monograph-like paper (it is over 200 pages with hundreds of illustrations and electron micrographs) describes 20 new species of which about 16 occur in NC and many in VA (including a few that are currently known only from VA)."   Can't wait to get my hands on this one, and I'll post information as soon as I hear that it's published.  Oh.  On the Isoperla montana/n.sp. question, the "n.sp." has been named: Isoperla kirchneri.  For the distinction, we'll have to wait to see this new study.
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On the nymph at the top of the page -- I actually found a small one (4 mm) on Saturday at the Rapidan River but didn't know it until I got a microscope view.


In this live view, I thought it was just Isoperla montana/Isoperla kirchneri -- but no.  The abdominal stripes and the lacinia shape match those of the nymph at the top of the page, which, for the moment, I refer to as Isoperla nr. orata.  (For more on this name, see the postings of 5/8/13 and 6/2/13.)

3 comments:

  1. Great news RE: Monograph-like paper. Please update us when you hear more about when and where it is going to be published. Thanks!

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