Warren wrote:
Yesterday on the Lower Madison I came across this mayfly on my vest.
I loaned my hatch identification book out and am having some trouble
identifying this insect.

http://home.earthlink.net/~troutbum_mt/namethatbug/

A couple of books seem to disagree on which insect this is. In
"Spinners" by Sylvester Nemes, this looks exactly like Leptophlebia
cupida (what he says is a Hendrickson on page 99). There is a
picture on the top of page two in the pictures section located
between pages 118 and 119. However, on page 35 of "A.K.'s Fly Box"
a Hendrickson is show as having three tails. The Quill Gordon on
the same page looks very similar to the bug that I took the pic of.
Basically the two books seem to be at odds and the source that I
would trust in this dispute is currently on loan to a friend who
just happens to be out of town.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
--
Warren
(use troutbum_mt on either yahoo or earthlink to respond via email)

That's a good picture, next time try to get a picture of the viens in a
wing, and then go to the website I manage for our flyfishing club.
Roger Rohrbeck has developed an identification scheme that gets you to
the genus for Washington mayflies, and I think that includes most of
what you can find in Montana too.

www.offc.org is the website. Click on the entomology link, and then
the WA Mayfly identification section. The questions are full of
technical terms, but they are all defined on a page also linked to on
the entomology page. Roger is still working on this stuff and would
appreciate any comments anyone has on the page.

Chas
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