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steelie

Daaaaww.... Attack of the specimens!

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Good Day,

 

Both my painted Butterflies and first paying mantis casing exoloded today! What to Do? The Painted ladies are well fed and separarrate from the mantis. I will be collecting young or small ants for the mantis tomorrow as they are not yet a large number of insects in the wild right now. But we can get over this. I also found a few nice samples of the water re-stonefly and mayflies.....

 

 

 

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steelie-

 

Nice. Anyone like to take a stab at identifying the mayfly nymph?

 

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I'm not very good at ID'ing nymphs, but since it has some olive blotching on it and given the time of year, I'm going to take a guess. Sulpher? :dunno:

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Good Day,

 

I am fairly certain the specimen in question is a beatis. Total length including tails is 13mm. Middle of three tails slightly shorter the outside tails. Two distinct wing pad points. gill "plates" running length of abdomen. color has already faded in the alchohol. This and the two stoneflies came from a small creek you could probably step over in many sections! Very few trout however. A few brookies here and there.

 

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Where is Taxon when you need him...? Where did you go... hehehe.

 

Steelie

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Good Day,

 

I am fairly certain the specimen in question is a beatis. Total length including tails is 13mm. Middle of three tails slightly shorter the outside tails. Two distinct wing pad points. gill "plates" running length of abdomen. color has already faded in the alchohol. This and the two stoneflies came from a small creek you could probably step over in many sections! Very few trout however. A few brookies here and there.

 

post-295-1146936594_thumb.jpg

 

Where is Taxon when you need him...? Where did you go... hehehe.

 

Steelie

Steelie-

 

Geeeeeeeez, I gotta sleep some time. I agree with your (and others') identification of Baetis and Blue-winged Olive. I believe it to be the species, which was previously classified as Baetis vagans, one of the many that were combined as Baetis tricaudatus.

 

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Good Day,

 

Cool, thanks for the opinion Taxon!

 

Unfortunately, I came home this evening and most of the little mantises had perished. Not sure why yet. But nature works in strange ways. Butterflies are still very healthy.

 

Steelie

 

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Good Day,

 

Weather has taken a nasty turn here in Michigan. Snow in the UP cold, windy, and very wet in the L.P. So, knowing this was coming, I ordered both house fly and fruit fly larva over the web for the remaining mantis as outdoor sources would be scarce for at least the next week. I have moved the "survivors" to a 5 gallon aquarium. The die off I mentioned earlier is natural. Hence why bugs lay sooooo many eggs. At any rate, it is really cool to watch these little mantis, less than one half an inch in length thus far, "reach" out and grab their prey. Even though the fruit flies are plentiful and many have become adults, two mantis have been canibalized by their bretheren. This too is the nature of it. Who hasn't caught a fish with a fish in its mouth?! Darwin's theory at it's best.

 

Painted lady butterflies still quite healthy and eating well. Hope I can find some thistle for them to conceivably breed on...

 

Steelie

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Hey,

 

I've just got back to the forum after a long time away, and I just thought it was pretty cool to see someone else online with lots of insects. I actually have a nice little colony of stick insects, which I have now bread to the 6th generation. Its been quite an adventure. You will definatly have some fun. If you have never had mantis before they can get quite big, so be prepared. I've seen females that were 6inches long. Very impressive.

 

I was actually also wondering where you got them from. I've been unable to obtain any mantis, or new stick insects, without gettting some from a entomology lab.

 

Well have fun, my favorite is watching them eat.

 

Gopher

 

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It's definitely a "Baetis." The middle cercus is reduced, which is common among some of Baetis species. Others have the middle cercus greatly reduced, or absent, but these may be other genera. McCafferty, Lugo-Ortiz, and Waltz have been revising the systematics of this family, and Baetis has been split into several genera, e.g. Acentrella, Plauditus. For nymphs, it helps to have a good stereo microscope, bifurcated light souce, and dissecting tools in which to examine physical characters, especially mouthparts.

Cheers, Ethan

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