| | Insects of Britain and Ireland: the genera of Ephemeroptera |
Imago. The compound eyes rounded.
Wings more or less spotted with brown or blackish. Fore-wings with veins M1 and Cu1 strongly strongly diverging basally; with R5 and R4 joined basally. Hind-wings present. The hind-wing costa smoothly curved. Hind tarsi with 4 moveable segments, or with 2–3 moveable segments.
The abdomen with three tails. The lobes of the penis without recurved appendages.
Nymph. Gills all densely fringed with filaments on both sides.
Classification. Superfamily Ephemeroidea. Family Ephemeridae.
British representation. 3 species; E. danica (Mayfly or Green Drake Dun, Mayfly male Spinner, and Mayfly, Spent Gnat or Black Drake female Spinner), E. lineata, and E. vulgata (Drake Mackerel Dun and Spinners).
Illustrations. • Ephemera vulgata: B. Ent. 708. • Ephemera vulgata: B. Ent. 708, legend+text. • Ephemera vulgata: B. Ent. 708, legend cont.. • Ephemera vulgata.
We advise against extracting comparative information from the descriptions. This is much more easily achieved using the DELTA data files or the interactive key, which allows access to the character list, illustrations, full and partial descriptions, diagnostic descriptions, differences and similarities between taxa, lists of taxa exhibiting or lacking specified attributes, and distributions of character states within any set of taxa. See also Guidelines for using data taken from Web publications.
Cite this publication as: ‘Watson, L., and Dallwitz, M.J. 2003 onwards. Insects of Britain and Ireland: the genera of Ephemeroptera. Version: 11th April 2022. delta-intkey.com’.
