Need to Identify
Location: Northeastern Pa.
December 30, 2010 6:50 pm
Mr. Bugman,
We have had an infestation of these bugs since early November. Have no clue what they are and have searched all over online but have not yet found a match. Can you please help us identify them?
Signature: desperate in Pa

Small Winter Stonefly

Dear desperate,
You have Small Winter Stoneflies in the family Capniidae and we are really looking forward to the opportunity to educate you regarding the complexities of the web of life on our fragile planet and to hopefully nurture an appreciation of your own unique ecosystem in Northeastern Pennsylvania.  We should start with a definition of “infestation” and for that, we are turning to our Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary that accompanies our Encyclopaedia Britannica.  “1:  the act of infesting … :  Plague, annoyance  2:  something that infests:  swarm … 3:  the state of being infested esp. with metazoan parasites in or on an animal or plant body.”  The dictionary goes on to define “infest” as “1 archaic:  to attack or harass persistently :  worry, annoy  2a:  to visit persistently or in large numbers  :  overrun, haunt …  b:  to live in or on as a parasite –used esp. f metazoan parasites of animals.”  At any rate, “infestation” has a negative connotation and though you may not understand how these Small Winter Stoneflies play a part in your ecosystem, and though you may be annoyed with their presence, they do not constitute an infestation.  They will not harm you, your pets, your home or its furnishings.
According to BugGuide, the “family is distributed throughout much of North America but many species have restricted geographic ranges, and are endemic to relatively small areas.“  That means that you might have a unique species that is endangered.  The fact that there were enough individuals to spark your concern is indicative of a healthy population.  Additionally, Stoneflies have aquatic larvae that cannot survive in polluted waters.  The presence of a large quantity of adult Small Winter Stoneflies in your area is indicative of a nearby pure water supply.  A healthy population of Stoneflies are actually an indicator that there is a healthy and diverse ecosystem in your area.  This past March, we selected Winter Stoneflies as our Bug of the Month and that resulted in a request from the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation.
Because we feel so strongly about the preservation of the environment as well as promoting an appreciation of the lower beasts, we are selecting your letter and images as our featured Bug of the Month for January 2011 even though Winter Stoneflies have occupied that position of distinction on our website in the past.

Small Winter Stoneflies

I so appreciate your e-mail and sharing of knowledge on these Small Winter Stoneflies.  I understand that ‘infestation’ has a negative connotation and I didn’t mean for it to come across as negative although they are “visiting persistently and in large numbers” and are often falling from the ceiling  of our basement or siding of our house onto our bodies or into our hair.  The backside of our house is literally covered in them and you can’t come in the door without a few making their way in as well.  Nonetheless, I’m very happy to learn that they are not harmful to us, our pets, or our home. We do have a seasonal creek that runs back behind our house, so I’m wondering if that is the source of “unpolluted” water they are being attracted to?
Again, thank you for your time in helping us to identify this insect and learn more about them! We’ll tread more carefully from here on out…
The Becks in Pa.

The creek sounds exactly like the habitat needed for the larvae to mature in an aquatic environment.  Stoneflies live in running water, not standing water.

Unknown BUg???
June 4, 2010
I found the two of these up at my parents a couple of weeks ago. The female appears to be the larger of the two, with her abdomen/ thorax now curled up to the back side of her wings protecting eggs. The smaller is @ 1 1/4″ in length, the larger @ 1 1/2″ in length. Can you tell me what this is? Thank you.
Becky Kopka
Staples, MN

Stoneflies

Hi Becky,
These are Stoneflies in the order Plecoptera.  According to BugGuide in a posting with an aversion to punctuation:  “nymphs occur primarily under stones in cool unpolluted streams; some species occur along rocky shores of cold lakes, in cracks of submerged logs, and debris that accumulates around stones, branches, and water diversion grills spring and summer adults may be found resting on stones and logs in the water, or on leaves and trunks of trees and shrubs near water; winter stoneflies are often attracted to concrete bridges over streams, and some species are commonly found on snow or resting on fence posts during the warmer days of late winter“.

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Late winter bug… another snowfly?
March 21, 2010
Hello! This photo was taken today (21 Mar 10) inside my house. We are right above the Petawawa River. These bugs take over the outside of my house around this time each year, covering the front and back doors, and eventually make their way inside. The one photographed is only about 1 cm long, but the fully grown ones are brown and can be about 3 cm (1″) long with wings on their backs. The small ones don’t really fly (“fall with style” maybe) but the bigger ones flutter around a little bit.
Thank you so much! My neighbour and I have been going crazy trying to figure out who these visitors are each year.
J. Ross
Petawawa, Ontario

Snowfly

Hi J,
Thanks for sending in another photo of our Bug of the Month for March, the Winter Stonefly or Snowfly.

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F.Y.I. – StoneFly
March 2, 2010
With the help of your site there is no doubt that what we came across is the StoneFly. This is just additional comments if anyone is interested. While hiking on Feb 28, 2010 with temperatures of about +2 celcius we saw hundreds (or thousands) of these insects slowly crawling across the top of the snow ALL in the same direction (maybe toward the river or bush, which were both in that direction). If we stood still for a few seconds the bugs closest would almost always turn toward us (eek!). We thought maybe they were young Earwigs and it might be a sign of an infestation for the summer but it is nice to see that is not the case. We were very surprised to see any bugs at all!
Thanks for your excellent site!
Dan.
Southern Ontario, Canada (about 25km n/w of Toronto along the Humber river)

Snowfly

Hi Dan,
Thanks for your wonderful observations of the behavior of the Snowfly, a species of Winter Stonefly.  Can you recall if the alignment had anything to do with the sun or with the wind?  For Americans that might be celcius challenged, +2 translates to about 35 degrees Fahrenheit.  Thanks so much for including the terrain where the sighting occurred.  We are happy to see that there was an instant hit to our Bug of the Month posting for March.

Location: Southern Ontario along the Humber River

Hi,
It was very overcast for the entire day so that you couldn’t even tell in which direction the sun was. There was no discernable breeze but the flies would have been headed directly into the slight breeze that there was. To me it doesn’t seem like it was either of those factors that effected their direction though.
There would have been 2-3 acres of the flies fairly evenly dispersed and I would say that every one of the flies was headed the same direction. There are a few photos and you can see in the photos with more than one fly that they are all facing the same direction. In their tiny little insect minds it seemed that they knew exactly where they were going….
Dan.

Request from the Xerces Society
Permission to Use Photo
Hi there; I am conservation biologist with the Xerces Society (www.xerces.org) currently writing an Endangered Species Act (ESA) petition to list a couple of rare, endemic, and highly threatened Idaho snowflies (family: Capniidae). I am inquiring after permission to potentially use a photo that a user submitted on your site. Do you have contact information for all of your users? The photo of interest is at this url: http://www.whatsthatbug.com/2010/03/02/snowfly-a-winter-stonefly-2/. Posted just yesterday. The photo would be credited, of course.
Sarah

Hi Sarah,
Here at What’s That Bug? we reserve the right to grant permission to nonprofit education ventures to use images posted to our site, often because the requests are made years after the photos were submitted and we cannot contact the photographer.  In this case, Dan’s email address was still handy, and he can respond directly to you if he would like to grant permission.

Hello Sarah,
Yes, I do give permission to use these photos. If you do use the photo(s) and your report will be accessible to the public I wouldn’t mind knowing how to take a look at it when complete. I have been trying to inspire a teenage niece and nephew to have an interest in photography (I believe an enthusiasm for photography enhances your appreciation for everything you see whether photography related or not) and they may be impressed to see what interesting things can develop. Don’t worry if you forget to inform us when the time comes. It is not terribly important.
I have attached the highest resolution photo of the fly. There are 5 or 6 other photos of groups of flies on the snow if they could be of any use. Let me know if you would like a copy of them.
If these flies are rare enough that there should be some effort to preserve their environment then let me know and I will forward the info to conservation groups here.
It is nice to see that my photos might be of some use!
Good luck with your efforts!
Dan.

Dear Sarah and Dan,
I am glad to see that we have come to a collaborative agreement in this matter.  Often preservation of a single humble species is imperative for the preservation of an entire ecosystem.

Thank you, Dan.
Yes, I will email you the petition when complete.
For the time being, do introduce your niece and nephew to our website,
www.xerces.org, which features many fantastic photos as well as lots of really good, free invertebrate conservation resources.
The “store” has some cool kids books for sale, too, if you are interested.
Since your species is unidentified, I have no idea about its rarity. Many snowfly species are weak flyers (hence the walking you observed?) and are highly endemic (e.g. confined to single stream or small cluster of sites). They are also generally very sensitive to pollutants and have very narrow habitat requirements (e.g. cold water, high dissolved oxygen, pebble-gravel substrate, etc.). In fact, stoneflies are considered to be one of the most sensitive indicators of water quality in streams and are frequently used as sentinel organisms in biomonitoring, as they are among the first macroinvertebrates to disappear from systems impacted by physical habitat degradation and thermal and chemical pollution.
Re: your species, I would start by looking on NatureServe (or whatever local Conservation Resources you have) to see if there are any snowfly species in your area that people have already flagged as sensitive. If so, you could do your best at further ID, or follow through with them to see what they think. I might have a chance to look into this a little bit, too, in the coming month or so. Right now I’m rushing to get this petition out in time, or I would do more.
Thanks so much,
I’m really quite envious of your sighting!
Sarah

Hi again Dan (White),
Sorry, I missed the part about you having photos of multiple stoneflies together.
Yes, those would be really cool to see if you get a chance!
I’m curious about their density while walking, etc.
Thanks!
Sarah

UPDATE:  June 22, 2010
Hi Dan,
just wanted to let you know that we filed the petition for Capnia lineata and zukeli—
It is currently available on the home page of our website (www.xerces.org ), a few items down…
Thanks again for the use of your photo!
It looks great!
Sarah