Giant salmonfly
The giant salmonfly is a big stonefly with bright orange joints and long wings that lie flat on its back. It spends years as a young nymph under water in fast rivers. Then it climbs out onto a rock and turns into a flying adult.
How fast is it?
Fun facts
Its nymphs live in the water for three to four years before they grow wings.
A nymph can grow longer than 5 centimetres.
The mother carries her eggs at the tip of her tail, and they look like a bunch of orange salmon eggs.
To become an adult, the nymph crawls onto a rock and splits open its old skin.
Anglers make fishing flies that look like it, because fish love to eat salmonflies.
Most asked questions about Giant salmonfly
?Why is it called a salmonfly?
Its orange colour and its bunch of orange eggs look like salmon eggs.
?What does a salmonfly eat?
The nymphs eat bits of old leaves and plant rubbish in the river.
?Is the giant salmonfly dangerous?
No, it is harmless to people.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Pteronarcys californica
- Group
- Other insects
- Family
- Pteronarcyidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Plecoptera > Pteronarcyidae
- Lives on
- North America
- Also known as
- Salmonfly
Where the facts come from
- Pteronarcys californica (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by Walter Siegmund (talk). CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.
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