Abstract
In the spring of 2019, a new state record for a mayfly (Ephemeroptera) was collected at Cedar Run and the Mad River in Champaign County, Ohio, United States. Ephemerella subvaria McDunnough, 1931, was collected and identified as nymphs and subsequently reared to adults. This Ohio location is exceptional. The geographic distribution of the species is widespread in the eastern United States; however, its distribution in the upper midwest is limited to northern Michigan and northern Wisconsin, but is absent from the southern counties of those states, and from Illinois. It is rare in Indiana and northern Kentucky. Until this report it was unknown from Ohio. Nymphs were collected on 26 March 2019. Reared in a temperature-controlled aquarium, the subimago emerged on 27 April 2019 and the imago emerged on 30 April 2019. It is hypothesized that Cedar Bog Nature Preserve, Cedar Run, and the Mad River—remnants of streams in a prior swamp in western-central Ohio—provide a refugia for this out-of-place species.
Highlights
The spiny crawler mayfly, or to fly fishers the Dark Hendrickson, Ephemerella subvaria McDunnough, 1931, was first considered as a dark variant of Ephemerella invaria (Walker, 1853) by McDunnough (1925)
More recently E. subvaria was reported from the southeastern United States: Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia (McCafferty et al 2010), and as far west as Iowa and Missouri (McCafferty et al 2003)
Its most abundant presence is in the upper half of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and northern Wisconsin
Summary
The spiny crawler mayfly, or to fly fishers the Dark Hendrickson, Ephemerella subvaria McDunnough, 1931, was first considered as a dark variant of Ephemerella invaria (Walker, 1853) by McDunnough (1925). Allen and Edmunds (1965), in their review of the subgenus Ephemerella, provided descriptions of the nymph and adult male, and considered E. subvaria as a “boreal Eastern North American species, known from Ontario austral to Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.”. Their distribution map for E. subvaria covers northern Minnesota, northern Michigan, northern Pennsylvania, most of Ontario, and most of New York. More recently E. subvaria was reported from the southeastern United States: Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia (McCafferty et al 2010), and as far west as Iowa and Missouri (McCafferty et al 2003) These sources do not specify the habitats or distributions within the states. The collection of E. subvaria in Cedar Run and the Mad River is reported here for the first time in Ohio
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