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krally

Midwest Entomology

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Hey everyone, interested if anyone knows some good reading on the bugs of the Illinois area. Not just streams, but also curious about the different species living in the local ponds, which is where I have to spend a lot of my time fly fishing?

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I grew up in Illinois, collected a lot of aquatic insects from water bodies mostly in the central and southern part for an Aquatic Entomology course I took in college. I used An Introduction to the Aquatic Insects of North America as a key.

 

The Illinois Natural History Collection won't show you any keys or photos, but you can search each order by county or even stream to see which species have been collected in your area or body of water.

http://ellipse.inhs.uiuc.edu:591/INHSCollections/

 

It seems like the INHS might have put a book out at one time but I can't find any info on it.

 

Speaking generally about aquatic insects in the state from my experience, you'll see a lot of dragonfly and damselfly nymphs and adults and aquatic-adult insects like water boatmen, water striders and aquatic beetles. You might even find some lake dwelling caddis larvae and adults, some of which can get surprisingly large. Not a huge number of mayflies in the lakes/ponds I'm afraid, maybe a few callibaetis?

 

From the streams I sampled across the state, I mostly found free living caddis and very few cased caddis. Mayflies were sporadic, some streams had very few, others had many, but only a few species seemed to do well in most of the State's streams. Not a wide variety of stoneflies either, but surprisingly most streams held a good number of black winter stoneflies.

 

Illinois in general isn't known for it's high water quality or abundance of aquatic insects, but I hope this helps.

 

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Thanks guys, helps a lot. I figure with the lack of Trout Streams in my area, I mine as well learn whats living in other bodies of water around me.

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