Family CAENIDAE

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Introduction

The Caenidae are a widespead family of mayflies, absent only from New Zealand and some oceanic islands (Edmunds et al. 1976). Representatives of the three known Australian genera, Irpacaenis Suter, Tasmanocoenis Lestage and Wundacaenis Suter, occur in a wide range of habitats including both lentic and lotic freshwater from alpine through to lowland environments. The genus Tasmanocoenis was redefined by Suter (1984) who also provided an illustrated key to the Australian caenid nymphs (Suter 1999a). Irpacaenis previously was referred to collectively as 'Caenid Genus C' (Suter 1999b). Life histories of Tasmanocoenis spp. were described by Suter & Bishop (1980), Marchant (1982) and Marchant et al. (1984). In the tropics the development from eggs to adults is approximately 1–2 months and in temperate streams development ranges from 5–12 months

General References

Edmunds, G.F. Jr, Jensen, S.L. & Berner, L. 1976. The Mayflies of North and Central America. Minneapolis : Univ. Minnesota Press x 330 pp.

Marchant, R. 1982. Life spans of two species of tropical mayfly nymph (Ephemeroptera) from Magela Creek, Northern Territory. Australian Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research 33: 173-179

Marchant, R., Graesser, A., Metzeling, L., Mitchell, P., Norris, R. & Suter, P. 1984. Life histories of some benthic invertebrates from the La Trobe River, Victoria. Australian Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research 35: 793-806

Suter, P.J. 1984. A redescription of the genus Tasmanocoenis Lestage (Ephemeroptera: Caenidae) from Australia. Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia 108: 105-111

Suter, P.J. 1999. Irpacaenis, a new genus of Caenidae (Ephemeroptera) from Australia. Australian Journal of Entomology 38(3): 159-167 [Date published 30 Jul. 1999]

Suter, P.J. 1999. Illustrated key to the Australian caenid nymphs (Ephemeroptera: Caenidae). Albury : Cooperative Research Centre for Freshwater Ecology Vol. 23 36 pp.

Suter, P.J. & Bishop, J.E. 1980. The effect of mesh size on the interpretation of the life history of two mayflies from South Australia. pp. 381-403 in Flannagan, J.F. & Marshall, K.E. (eds). Advances in Ephemeroptera biology. Proceedings of the International Conference on Ephemeroptera. New York : Plenum Press Vol. 3.

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