The Urban Pantheist

On Sunday I was hanging out in the back yard with my dad when this insect flew at me (rather lazily). I snatched it out of the air and took this picture. I told my dad that I thought it was a caddisfly.

Well, I was wrong. This is a winter stonefly, an insect in the family Taeniopterygidae. What I told my dad about the insect's life cycle had a lot of truth to it, as these insects live somewhat similar lives to caddisflies: They hatch as larvae in the water, where they eat detritus and/or plant matter, they emerge from the water as flying non-eating adults which live a very short time simply to mate and then die. The larva stage looks very different, and the winter stonefly larva makes no protective case. The adults differ from caddisflies by rather subtle differences in wing shape, which is easy to miss (but I probably won't miss it again, since I exposed myself to another embarrassing correction on bugguide.net).

Winter stoneflies are indicator species that live only in well-oxygenated running water. The presence of these insects suggests that nearby waterways are relatively unpolluted. This one may have hatched out of Stony Brook itself, or one of the smaller streams around Turtle Pond.