New State Stonefly (Plecoptera) Records For Pennsylvania, With Additional Records And Information On Rare Species
Author
Earle, Jane I.
text
Illiesia
2009
5
16
169
181
journal article
6786
10.5281/zenodo.4759416
07c83cbb-d592-43c1-894e-9fbcd0f48339
1854-0392
4759416
Attaneuria ruralis
(Hagen)
records in
Pennsylvania
are based on collections from 14 locations in 9 counties (
Masteller 1996
); however, most of these records are of adults collected prior to 1948 or nymphs collected and identified as part of stream bioassessments.
Questions
on the identification of
A. ruralis
nymphs by
Pennsylvania
aquatic biologists prompted me to examine nymph specimens of record at the
Academy of
Natural Sciences
of Philadelphia and the
Frost Entomology Museum
of
Pennsylvania State
University
, and additional material from the
Pennsylvania
Department of Environmental Protection
,
Harrisburg, PA
, and United States
Environmental Protection Agency
,
Wheeling, WV
.
Nymphs
were also compared with
A. ruralis
nymphs from
Iowa
.
All
nymphs identified as
A. ruralis
in these collections and recorded in
Masteller (1996)
were determined to be
Paragnetina media
(Walker)
, a common stonefly found in small to large warm water creeks in
Pennsylvania
, except for one nymph from
Pine Creek
,
Blackwell
,
Tioga County
, which was an
Acroneuria
.
Additionally
,
one adult
from
Fayette County
in the Frost Museum collections identified as
A
.
ruralis
was an
Acroneuria
. The only valid
Pennsylvania
records for
A. ruralis
, therefore, appear to be the pre-1946 adult specimens from Cumberland, Dauphin, and
Lebanon
Counties noted in
Surdick and Kim (1976)
, which were confirmed by Stark in his review of the
Perlidae
genera (
Stark and Gaufin 1976b
) or cited in
Needham and Claassen (1925)
. All but one of these records is from the
Harrisburg area
, likely from the
Susquehanna River
; the lone additional specimen is from an unspecified location in
Lebanon
County. Casual collections of adult stoneflies in the
Harrisburg area
during the past 20 years have not yielded any additional specimens of
A. ruralis
.
Also, I
have not been able to confirm the collection of any
A. ruralis
nymphs from Pennsylvania. Targeted collection efforts should be conducted in proper habitats to determine if this species is still present in Pennsylvania.
Heimdal et al. (2004)
indicated that
A. ruralis
nymphs could be found on woody debris or boulders in the slower current of rivers in interior Iowa.
Poulton and Stewart (1991)
stated that
A. ruralis
nymphs could be collected in Ozark streams by pulling debris from the river bottom or disturbing rocks or riprap upstream from a net.