EPOW - Ecology Picture of the Week

Black Stonefly of the Riparian

Black Stonefly (Austroperla cyrene), Order Plecoptera, Family Austroperlidae
Hamurana, New Zealand

Explanation:  Clinging to the bark of a tree next to a broad stream was this elongated insect.  We are in the magical land of Hamurana Springs Nature Reserve on the North Island of New Zealand, adjacent to Lake Rotorua, and have found a common resident of riparian (streamside) environments.

This is a black stonefly.  

OK.  Odd name.  It is not black.  Nor a fly.  Nor is it a stone.  

Regardless, it is a stonefly, likely so named because some life stages have wings and can fly, and their larvae are usually found beneath stones along streams.  

But this particular species is unique in several ways.  

It is endemic to New Zealand, found nowhere else on Earth.  

Further, this species, the black stonefly, and one other, the large green stonefly, were first described in 1845, and were the first stoneflies to be studied and described from New Zealand, with no other stonefly species further described -- eventually totaling 10 genera and 15 species in this same family -- for another 64 years (McLellan 1997)!  

And the black stonefly, this week's star, is the only species within its described genus, Austroperla.  

So, although common throughout the country of New Zealand, it is unique in its own evolutionary and geographic distributional way.

    
   
Information:
     McLellan, I.D.  1997.  Austroperla cyrene Newman (Plecoptera: Austroperlidae).  Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand 27(2):271-278.