Additions And Corrections To The Ephemeroptera Of Alaska

1 Pages·1994·0.32 MB·English

by  W P Mccafferty

PROC. ENTOMOL. SOC. WASH.
96(1), 1994, p. 177
Note
Additions and corrections to the
Ephemeroptera ofAlaska
McCafferty(1985. Proceedingsofthe En- a geographic subspecies B. macani bundyae
tomologicalSocietyofWashington 87: 381- in North America (including Alaska). Re-
386) listed 17 nominal species of mayflies cently, Engblom (pers. comm.) has con-
from Alaska. An additional eight species firmedthatbothtypical waca«/populations
found in the Yukon were listed as highly and typical bundyae populations are sym-
probable Alaskan residents. Since then, patricinScandinavia.Thisfactsuggeststhat
BrachycercusarcticusSoldan was described subspecies recognition is not valid, but in-
from Alaskan material by Soldan (1986. stead that one variable species or two spe-
Acta UniversitatisCarolinae, Biologica 5-6, cies are represented. Because the strictly
1982-1984: 289-362), and Baetis tricau- typical macani form has not been found in
datus Doddsand B. hicaudatus Dodds were North America, I am here recognizing B.
notedinanAlaskanecologicalstudybyMil- bundyae s. auctt. again as the valid North
ner (1987. Freshwater Biology 18: 53-70). American species. Thus it, not B. macani,
Brachycercus represents a new generic rec- should appear on the Alaska list.
ordfortheregion. I haverecentlyconfirmed A previous record oiMetretopus borealis
the B. bicaudatus record with a large series (Eaton) larvae in Alaska, given by Bemer
oflarvae taken by R. W. Baldwin in 1991 (1978. Transactions of the American En-
at Answer Creek near Talkeetna, Alaska tomological Society 104: 91-137) was
(62°17'N, 149°35'W). None of these addi- missedby McCafferty(1985). Basedon Ber-
tional Alaskan species have been reported ner's Figure 43, this record is actually re-
from the Yukon. ferable to M. alter Bengtsson and as such
Ephemerella inermis Eaton was first re- represents the first North American record
ported from Alaska by Edmunds, Jensen ofthis otherwise Palearctic species.
and Bemer (1976. The mayflies of North Several ofthe Alaskan species have been
and Central America. University of Min- shown tobecircumpolar(McCafferty 1985;
nesota Press). However, according to data Flowers. 1986. Entomological News 97:
given by Johnson (1978. Pan-Pacific En- 193-197). I recently have seen material of
tomologist54: 19-25),thesymmorphicspe- B. bicaudatus from Siberia, and thus this
cies E. infrequens McDunnough should be common western North American species
the species represented in Alaska, not E. should be added to those species known to
inermis. be Holarctic.
Morihara and McCafferty (1979. Pro- This paper has been assigned Purdue Ex-
ceedings of the Entomological Society of periment Station Journal No. 13750.
Washington 81: 34-37) synonymized the
W. P. McCafferty, Department ofEnto-
North American species Baetis bundyae
mology, Purdue University, West Lafayette,
Lehmkuhl with the European species Baetis
Indiana 47907.
macani Kimmins, recognizing it instead as