Background: Mike Meyer and Pat McCafferty (2008) provided the most recent and comprehensive up to date list of California mayflies, documenting which species occur in the state and the known distributions of those species based on published records. Much of the distribution data in here is from their work. The names are based on updates provided by Mayfly Central, the best place to find the current names to the species. This list is kept up to date by Luke Jacobus, who is probably the most productive mayfly researcher in the US at the moment.
Mike and I both came from Pat McCafferty’s lab at Purdue University at a time when a lot of the focus was documenting mayfly biodiversity in North America. Mike looked at a ton of material housed at the California Academy of Sciences, much of which is brought to light with his publication. One can search the data base at the California Academy of Sciences and find the specific records, if interested.
The links below will take you to the literature I have gathered that is specific for each family. The intent is to not be a complete listing of all publications for each species, but rather a resource as to where one might go for useful information in the literature. I am working slowly through each family, and so view this as a first draft.
Organization: A link to each Family is below, and within each Family is the discussion for each species. For each species I include the known geographic distribution in California [based primarily on Meyers and McCafferty (2008)], the type locale , discussion of adult and larval identification, and a little bit about the ecology, if available. Why the type locale? First, many species were originally described from California (and still only known from here), and this is a way for me to document this in one place. California is a biodiversity hotspot, and I want to celebrate that by highlighting, in some way, which mayflies were originally found/described from California specimens. Second, it provides a bit of the taxonomic history of the organism–where was it originally discovered? To me that is interesting, and so I am including it.
Helpful Books: Click the link at left to see some helpful books for identifying California mayflies.
Disclaimer: I am not presenting original research here, nor is it a peer-reviewed document (although I do appreciate constructive comments). It should not then be considered a “publication.” Rather this is more or less a partial collection of the research that has documented California mayfly taxonomy. I may add my commentary on which papers are more useful for identification, but that is solely my opinion from experience working with the California fauna. This is also meant to be a living document that can be easily updated as new information is published.