A Small Puddle

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A week or so ago I said I would show you what we found in a small pool of water in a limestone creek bed. The stream was an ephemeral creek and had only separated pools of water left. Some were deeper than others. Indeed, this particular pool was no more than a small shallow puddle. At best maybe three feet across. However it had caught my attention.

My first creature was a very well camouflaged dragonfly nymph. Yes, it is there right in the center.

Goodness much easier to see when it moves, eh. And then you may notice all the others moving swiftly across!

Ever since I saw this in one of my books I have been waiting to see one. And that day my eyes and mind were attuned to it. Then there it was! Now what are you looking at was none other that a Caddisfly (Trichoptera) case! Oh I was excited! However I didn’t have my handi-dandy collection jar (ie pill bottle container). Jeanne volunteered to go back to the car to fetch one. Oh thank you Jeanne! I didn’t want to let it out of my sight.

Then it started moving about!

Well, I took the caddisfly case home. It was small at just over 8mm long. The case was tapered slightly. Additionally the case had larger pebbles on the sides and was slightly flattened. These features would help with ID if I had a key. My best guess gets it to the Northern Caddisfly (Limnephilidae family). The caddisflies have complete metamorphosis with between 5 to 6 instars. Usually there is one generation per year.

I put the caddisfly in a smaller container so it would stay in view under the dissecting microscope. Plus I removed a lot of the water.

A week later I returned the caddisfly larva. However the small shallow puddle had dried up. Hence I released it in the big pool. Some caddisflies life cycles takes the ephemeral nature of stream in account closing the case up to pupate. I will assume the others still in the puddle did just that, pupate.

This had been a fine start to our day. And another nature item off my bucket list. Furthermore I surely will see more of them now that I have seen one. 🙂

But wait there is more. However you will have to wait for another post. 😉

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Keep looking!

The more you know, the more you see and the more you see, the more you know

11 Comments

  4. That’s a super find! Thanks for all the videos. Did you need to feed the larva anything during the time period you studied it? Or keep it in “pond water” as opposed to treated drinking water?

    Reply

    1. I just kept them in the creek water. Fingers crossed that it had enough to survive which they all did survive. And swirled around the water so they had oxygen too.

      Reply

      1. I can’t remember if I saw that one but I saw a lot of cool kinds in the northeast when I did that stream ecology road trip. I’ll have to go back and look at photos.

        Reply

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