NEW NEWS

(6 AUG 08) Two new Erie County records are: Isoperla montana (Banks) and Isoperla signata (Banks).

PLECOPTERA OF PENNSYLVANIA

You can find pictorial maps and text records of where Plecoptera occur in North America and Pennsylvania at this web site. You may use the search engine at the end of this text.Stoneflies are probably the second most abundant aquatic insect in streams. Stewart and Stark (1988) have stated that stoneflies have diversified their food habits such that the different species fill about every conceivable major food niche in streams. They are close relatives of the cockroaches with the primitive condition of possessing tails, but have the advanced ability to fold their wings over their back. Many stoneflies are known as clean-water insects, as they are often restricted to highly oxygenated water.In 1976, Surdick and Kim provided the most complete list of Pennsylvania species. In 1996, E. C. Masteller produced a distribution report, "Plecoptera Biodiversity of Pennsylvania," that included 144 species; this provides the basis for the records from which the database was derived. A published report by Masteller, E.C., 1996, "New Records of Stoneflies (Plecoptera) with an Annotated Checklist of the Species for Pennsylvania" (Great Lakes Entomologist 29(3):107-120), is available. The Wild Resource Conservation Fund funded the initial research for this project. Numerous individuals assisted in determinations at various stages: Boris Kondratieff, Richard Baumann, Bill Stark, and Rebecca Surdick. If you are aware of omissions that have a valid literature citation or specimens with a voucher specimen on file, please contact E. C. Masteller. The North American list was compiled from a database maintained by Bill Stark of Mississippi College (1998) and records from the Smithsonian Institution (USNM). Stewart and Stark (1988) list 575 species representing 99 genera and nine families from North America. The records that are the source of the GIS maps are now on the website under stonefly searchable database. In the 1844 records there are 141 species in 9 families that will be updated as more data becomes available. Searches can be done by county, site, species, physiographic province, drainage basin, state parks, collector, and deposit.