I'm going on record: in the future when it's 34º and windy, I am not going out to the streams! Wow -- that was cold.
I went to one of our good, headwater streams in Sugar Hollow this morning hoping to find -- what else? -- Molanna, since I've not yet seen one myself. So I focussed on silt-covered rocks in still water pools. No luck. I did continue to see "weighted-case makers" (Goera fuscula) and decided to take some photos of this larva since it had made this colorful, kind of lopsided case.
Other pix of the same larva.
Note the pronotal and mesonotal anterolateral projections, key features on the Goerids.
What a beauty.
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In the leaf packs I saw a number of insects, including a lot of Giant stoneflies, some of which were getting quite large. This one was 35 mm. Pteronarcys proteus. (Good lighting makes for good photos.)
A couple of oddities. Number one, this small common stonefly.
Strange colors -- but it may be a nymph that just recently molted. No anal gills, and no setal row on the occipital ridge. That normally means Acroneuria abnormis, and there is an A. abnormis population that inhabits this stream. However, if it is A. abnormis, it appears to the "brown" one, the one that lacks a clear yellow "M" on the head and has an abdomen that's uniformly brown. But -- "early times," as the British would say.
Number 2 is this little case that I found.
I couldn't see a larva inside, so I brought it home for a microscope look. It was abandoned. But it appears to be the case of a young Uenoid, the case-maker that will soon be showing up in large numbers in all of these streams.
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No warm up for most of a week. Hope to get out next Thursday.
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