 Welcome everybody. We're just going to leave we just opened the door to the webinar so we're just going to leave that open for a while and let everybody come in. Do another minute or two. We started right right at 630 so I'm sure there'll be a few people who join us in a few minutes as folks come in so I just want to point out a couple of things. This is in webinar format just as it was last night. It is being recorded. So if you miss anything or if you have to leave early. This will be available to view for everybody throughout the whole surveying season. And then also I want to let you know that we have two options to talk so we have the chat which is down at the bottom. I've heard from a couple people that they weren't able to see the chat at all and it looks like it's going to default to going to just the hosts and panelists. So hopefully you see a drop down menu there and if you hit that there is a button that says everyone you can change it so everyone can see your chat. I'm hoping everybody can see that so if you do have anything that you want to say to everybody you are welcome to do that. And throughout the presentation tonight if you have any questions please please. And I'm looks like. Allie Stockwell is here and it looks like a couple people are saying that there is no drop down and you can only talk to hosts and panelists so I apologize for that I've. I've tried to look through the settings of zoom and I can't find anywhere where it says change that if you, you know what 123. There we go. If somebody could let me know right now that says everyone in your drop down menu. All right, perfect. My apologies for that so you should be able to chat with everyone now there so if you have anything you would like to put in that chat, please feel free to do that. If you have any questions that are related to the program or to the, and I'm just getting a message that people can't hear me. People hear me. Yes. Okay, great. Always fun to, you know, to start zoom you never know what's going to happen. So if you have a question during the presentation please use the q amp a. If it is a question that is pertinent to the topic that Tom is talking about right then I will go ahead and interrupt him when we can get that answered. So that's something that can wait a little bit we will take pauses a couple pauses throughout the presentation to address those questions. You are welcome to also ask questions if you have anything about, you know the logistics or things like that. Remember last night's presentation will also be available to view if you need to see that again, and then we will be available throughout the season with any questions or anything like that. So we have a lot of critters to learn about. So I am going to pass this over to Tom, who is going to teach us about what we are looking for. I'm just going to share my screen but there's giving me a different thing here. Look good. Perfect, you can see it. So everybody do day two of the mainstream explorers webinar, and just a reminder to folks that later, there are a series of in person opportunities where you could go in person to see actual bugs. Some of them, those workshops will be situated next to stream so you'll get to practice collecting the critters, and I highly recommend that because and so between now and then you could look at the guides which will be put up on to the main Audubon website, and bring the guides to that training workshop, and it's really a great experience to learn how to do the sample collections to sort through the critters, and practice using the key in having folks help answer questions. So last night, we talked about some of the instructional materials and how to collect samples, and a little bit about how to sort the macro vertebrates, and then tonight we'll really focus on an overview of the different kinds of macro vertebrates you'll find in Maine. So we have the guides have changed since last year. We've split the guide into three volumes, volume one, it gets into the introduction and sampling instructions. Volume two, it has the basic macro vertebrate guide, and then volume three is the expanded macro vertebrate guide. Wouldn't you know it. Push the wrong button have to start over. Good thing it's being recorded. Okay, so the basic guide is the one we're kind of going to go over tonight. And in there there's a key, and it will use you start at the top, and it mentions whether the critter has segmented legs, or not. And so, if it has segmented legs, it would go over to this this way, and then you would have one or more choices for at each tier, lower from there. And I won't go through all of the key today, but we'll be going over an overview of the critters. So I'll let people practice using the key on their own. But so this key here gets has all the critters with the segmented legs. So like this beetle larvae here you can see has legs on it, and you can see some segmented legs there on a cat as fly. And all the second page are critters that do not have segmented legs, they may have some sort of like baked legs called pro legs, and they might have some other gills or projections on them but they don't have jointed six jointed legs. And in the guide. This is an example from the advanced guide but the each of the critters will have a description saying whether it's sensitive, moderately sensitive or tolerant. So we have some examples of pictures of what you might see in main streams that would fit in that group as a diagnostic characteristics, a little bit about their behavior environmental sensitivity, any scale bars that show kind of the general size of the critter that you'd be looking for in the trace that you were the samples. So we have the data sheets. So if you choose to do the paper data sheet. They have on the front of the basic field data sheet there's sensitive groups of mayflies stone flies, cat as flies, and then another type of cat as fly called a free living cat as fly and water and on the back there's some other net spinning cat as flies dragon flies and so forth. And then if you are going to use the advanced key the expanded key. Then you're looking at all different kinds of me flies and stone flies and cat as flies and so forth. So for some folks, starting with the, we recommend starting with the basic key, and then as you become more comfortable, then you can challenge yourself to learn more of the expanded key. And then some folks may already have some knowledge or past experience and they may be able to just jump right into the expanded key. So let's just go over an overview of what aquatic macro vertebrates are. So they're animals without backbones like that can be seen without assistance of magnification and these most of the aquatic macro vertebrates you're going to find are aquatic insects, the larval forms in particular. And then you can other have other macro vertebrates such as worms and leeches and crayfish and snails, and the main Department of Environmental Protection has been doing surveys of streams and rivers since 1983. And we've identified over 1400 different kinds of macro vertebrates and mainstream and rivers. They're a diverse group of organisms. And so I went through a process of finding the ones that were most common in main streams and provided the best indication of sensitive, moderately sensitive or tolerant and combine them into the stream So in general, there are four types of aquatic insects and the keys are not just based on these but knowing these four types will really help kind of recognize what type of insect you might have and a little bit about their life history. And it's a can help on many ways. So we'll just start with these four groups. And so the first group are insects that have jointed legs and wing pads on their back, and they'll have some kind of tail filaments sometimes. And the second group are ones that do not have wing pads. They look more like a grub or caterpillar in shape where they're like a fleshy body and the they have a distinct head, they have segmented legs, but no wing pads. And then we have a third group that have no legs and no wing pads but they might have these pro legs that are, they're not segmented legs but they're more like little bumps. And then the final group are adults insects or macro invertebrates. So we'll start with the ones are in group one. So again, group one, these have links have legs jointed legs. And when they all the jointed legs typically have three parts they'll have a upper part middle part in a lower part. And then the lower part will end in one or two little claws usually. They have these group have little wing pads will develop on the older larvae. Can I interrupt you just for a second. We just, we have a question if you could just explain what wing pads are. We're good there. Perfect, thank you. Yeah. So these group one insects have what's called incomplete metamorphosis so evolutionary wise these are very ancient insects. And so they have a life cycle where you have an adult like this dragonfly is green darner, and they lay eggs and an egg hatches and, and then you have a larvae and the macro invertebrates in this group insects in this group. And the larvae is specifically called a niad because it's, it's because it has the wing pads, and I'll have an example in a sec. And then the larvae will then, when as they get older, will crawl out of the water, and they'll mold their skin, and they'll pump up their eggs and they'll become adults. And so these larvae, when they come out of the egg start off very teeny tiny. And this obviously not to scale but but and they will they'll have what these phases where they'll grow and then molt and then grow and and it's similar to a lobster, where you have the lobsters will have a soft shell phase and they'll mold, and they'll every mold they'll get bigger. And so the same thing with the insects. And so typically the macro vertebrate the insects in this group will have like seven to nine, maybe a little more in stars. And as they're, when they're very small, they, they, they, they're just growing. And then, as they get older, they on their, the back of their, their thorax so you have a head, a thorax where the legs are, and then the abdomen. And on on the middle section, the thorax where the legs are, they'll start developing these little wing pads, and I'll have a picture in a sec that might show them a little better. But you can see right here on this one here there's a this brownish wing pad. And so in that's where the, the new wing is developing and growing inside of that. And you won't see him on the young ones but as they, they get to these older in stars they'll start developing those wing pads. And so when they come out of the water, they'll crawl up onto a dock or a rock or a plant, and they'll mold their exoskeleton one last time, and they'll, they'll come out, and then they'll have their wings will be very small and compacted, and they'll sit there for a while, might take an hour or more for them to pump fluid from their body to into the, the wings, and the wings will then grow and then harden. And so here is a dragonfly where the wings have reached their full growth potential and they're hardening, and they're almost ready to fly. And I'm looking for, so this one on the bottom here, I don't know if folks can see this brown projection here is the wing pad, and here's one here, and here's some on this guy here. And so, some of them, the insects in this group one are dragonflies, dragonflies are ancient, they're, they were around way before dragon, way before dinosaurs, and they have the types you're going to find in main streams are most likely to be these here, some of these groups. And some of them, like the club tails and spike tails are will you'll most likely find them where there's a little bit of sand. So you might find them in areas where you have rocks with sand around the rocks or if the sand or if the bottom of the stream is just sandy. And so these guys will burrow in the sand, and we'll wait for something case to come by and then they'll, they'll, they have this mouth part that they extend out, like the movie alien. And so snap out grab something and then eat it. And so this dragon hunter here is very well camouflaged. Sometimes it will look like a leaf when it's in the bottom of the pan, and they can get quite large like a size of a half dollar or even a dollar coin. And the they're called dragon hunters because as an adults, they are very large dragon flies that are known to actually eat anything, including other dragon flies. And so they're pretty badass. And the darners are another one that you can find in fast flowing rocky streams. This one is a this one here is the greenish one is most often found in like a, in areas of the stream where you might have leaves or roots, the ones you find in the fast flowing string part section of a rocky stream would be small and brown. Any case but these are our dragon flies and they grow up to be, you all know the flying dragon flies. So all dragon flies start their life in water in a pond or a stream or lake or wetland or vernal pool, and depending on what type of species they are. And some of them will will be in the water for the summer, and will come out the following year as an adult, and then some will stay in the water for multiple years before coming out. So if you find dragon flies. It's a good sign of stream health in general, because it means that they, their predators. So it means that there's a diversity of food in the stream, and also that the water quality is good enough for a year or for them to complete their life cycle in the water. So related to dragon flies are these insects called damselflies, and for folks who canoe and kayak you might recognize these, and they can come in a whole variety of beautiful colors. And they generally, they're very closely related to dragon flies, they have this mouth part. It's a hinged mouth part and you can kind of see that it starts here comes back, there's a hinge and it comes forward again. And so it when they want to eat something they'll extend that mouth part out, grab a prey item and then bring it back to eat. Can you all see my cursor when I'm talking. Excellent. All right. And this one here you can clearly see these wing pads hanging on the back here. So this is an older larvae. If it was a younger larvae larvae it might not have the wing pads and I use the term larvae. But the larvae in this group also are called niads. And so the keeper damselflies, again you have these jointed legs and wing pads. And I should have mentioned that the damselfly, the dragon flies. They don't have any observable gills. So the all of these critters have to breathe and get oxygen in some way. And so dragon flies have gills inside their body. So they'll suck in water, run the water over their gills, and it's shoot it out their rear end. And if you're working with kids, you can actually poke a dragon fly a little bit and it will suck water in its mouth and shoot the water out its rear end and it's like jet propulsion. And so the kids can find that fun and you call it fart propulsion and the kids laugh and it's great icebreaker. And damselflies in contrast have external gills. So these tails here are shaped like leaves or like a canoe paddle. They're very flat. So if you're looking at them from above they would look very thin but if you look at them from the side they're these leaf paddle shape. And they have three gills. And they have an elongate body compared to the dragon flies that tend to be more stout and round. And the damselflies that you'll find in main streams. The most common ones are these jewel wings. And they these jewel wings have their bodies this picture doesn't do justice it's like an iridescent green or iridescent blue depending on what color you're looking at it. It's gorgeous beautiful dragon fly or damselfly and the females have this white dot at the tip of the wing and the males have just a solid dark wing. There are a couple other kinds. This is called an ebony jewel wing. There are a couple other kinds of jewel wings that will have like a gold colored body. And there's one that has a green body, but the wings aren't as dark it's it's half dark and half light. In any case the jewel wings have you for the basic key, you would just need to recognize that it's a damselfly. If you were doing the advanced key, then you might. You might be able to go look at what kind of damselfly and the jewel wings have these antennae on their heads that are stiff and project out like bull horns. You can also find these narrow wing damselflies that tend to be smaller shorter in some rocky and root type habitats, these spread spread wing damselflies. These are typically more pond and wetland related. But if you are sampling the edge of a stream where there's vegetation or roots you might collect some of them in your sample to. And so these guys are also predators they eat other aquatic insects for the most part. And you might notice a pattern where the types of macro invertebrates or aquatic insects you're finding are generally the babies, and they they typically have an adult forms that fly around in air. The next group are mayflies and mayflies fear a trout freshman you'll know all about mayflies because of the artificial lures that are used to replicate their hatches and stuff like that. And again, this you can tell it's a group one, you have has the segmented legs and being an aquatic insect, it has six legs. And there's some wing pads on the back. So there's one wing pad, there's another wing pad. And mayflies. As far as I know I said usually one pair because I just didn't know if there was an odd ball somewhere but all the wing pads I know of in all the mayflies I know of in Maine. And the United States have one pair of wing pads, as opposed to many of the other aquatic insects larvae in niads that would have two pairs. And mayflies, the way you would distinguish it from damselfly is the gills. So the damselfly has the looks like three tails from above they look like they're thin, but from the side, they're their paddle shaped. In contrast, the mayflies tails are are just thin like very just a year's another tail so they're just more like a filament. And these guys need to breathe also and they have gills on their abdomen. So, most aquatic insects larvae have nine abdominal segments. So if you started here at the back where the tail there's up there's 123456789. And if you were, if you were real taxonomist you would really pay attention to what domino segments have gills and which don't. In this case for the basic guide, you just want to look to see if there are any gills on the abdomen. And, and, and that in combination with the legs, the general body shape will get you to mayfly mayflies have an interesting life cycle. Where the adults will lay eggs, the eggs will hatch and you'll have the niad or nymph. And then it will emerge into an infertile stage called a done that will fly around and will molt a second time into the adults, fertile adult, which will then mainly eggs and these have these. These amazing hatches where they synchronized where the all the mayflies or many of the mayflies of the same species will know by certain environmental cues to this night we're going to go out and we're going to emerge and and have these tremendous hatches. And some of the mayflies will be an adult for just one day, and then they don't have any mouth parts or anything they don't eat they just reproduce and die. And then some mayflies will live for a little bit longer as an adult but they primarily spend their life in the water. Tom Sally's asking how long is it between the done in the adult stage. I think it's just a matter of hours. So I think they will go to a nymph to done, and then to quickly relatively quickly to the adult spinner stage. And so in the stream explorers I went through look at the what were the most common mayflies in our streams and rivers and main. They have these groups you have flat head, brush legged, small square gill, small minnow, spiny crawler and prom gild. And some of these can be quite small, especially when they're young so they'll be as small as a grain of rice and and so when you have this tray of water and sediment and leaves. You'll really have to just kind of get used to just staring at it and see looking for movement. And the more you look the more you see so it's really fun. And one of the behaviors that may have mayfly niads have is that when they move around. Some of them will swim and they'll swim up and down like a like a whale or dolphin, as opposed to other types of aquatic insects that typically go side to side, like a fish or lizard. So, the small minnow flat head. The brush legged those guys are really strong swimmers. Some of them don't swim that much they will, but they generally don't like the spiny crawler they kind of just crawl around. And some of these are adapted to live on rocks, in particular like the flat headed mayflies, their whole body is compressed. So, when they are in the fast water on a rock there, they keep a low profile so water just flows right over them. And some of them. You are like the prom guild are a little bit more bulky, and these guys tend to show up in a little bit more of the sandier sections or areas where there's wood, that sort of stuff. So, in, in just a quick reminder, the mayflies you're looking at the segmented legs gills on the abdomen. The smaller ones will have one pair of wing pads. They usually have three tails. Some there are two kinds of mayflies you can find in Maine that have only two tails. So here's one that only has two tails, and one of the small minnow mayflies only has two tails. So if you look on the bodies that there's a variety of different types of gills, and you, it's hard to see on the, this screen because it's small, but if you look in the guidebook, you'll it'll be clear. And so there's these paddle shaped gills here there this guy looks like as punk hairdo with these skills and kind of stick right out. These are prom guild, so they're, they can have, they split in different ways. Some of them will have like a leaf shape with prongs coming off of it. And some of them, like the square gill and the spiny crawlers is really apparent where the square gill where they will have protective covers over the gills. And so they're called gill plates, and they're thought to help protect the gills from bits of sand or silk floating in the water. And so those are pretty obvious. And the spiny crawlers tend to have these like they're the gill plates are smaller. And once they might be hard to recognize at first but if you look in the guide, the pictures are will be a lot better. And you'll get used to looking for that. So, in comparison the most likely things you're going to get may flies confused with are the damsel flies in the next group, which are the stone flies. Stone flies are probably as a group the most sensitive aquatic macro invertebrates in Maine as a group they need really cold oxygen rich clean water. And they look a fair bit like may flies, but the key diagnostic features are, well, first of all, they, to get them in that group one, they have a clear head, they have jointed legs so you have six legs. And they have wing pads so on this guy here that thoracic segment one. So thoracic segment two thoracic segment three. So on thoracic segment one there would never be any wing pads on an older stone fly niad. You can see that this shape is different than that one. And that's these little triangular things are called they they're not as obvious as some of the other wing pads but those are the wing pads developing. So they have the wing pads on segments two and three, where the may flies I think only just have it on segment two, and not on three. Stone flies only have two tails, they'll never have three tails. Stone flies, most of them don't have any gills on the abdomen. The there's one or two of sections, exceptions where chest up near like the armpits they might have a little bit of hairy gills. So this is a common stone fly and you can see this kind of yellowish, hairy stuff in the armpits and or leg pits, and those are the gills, but they don't have like those paddle shaped gills or prom gills or, or, or any kind of covers protecting gills on the abdomen. And in main streams. These are the ones you're most likely to find doing this type of stream explorer survey. In addition to the common stone flies this one. They have a rolled winged winter roach like slender winter and the word and giant. The, again, some of these things are tiny. So the rolled winged in winter. They're like a grain of rice crawling around. And if they're in their wing pads can be quite small and they'll be parallel to the body. So if you're looking like an advanced key or pay attention to where the wing pads are what the shape, what the shapes of the wing pads are is and then. So for example this this one here the wing pads are different shape than, than this one here. And any case, again, there's a variety of shapes, a variety of sizes, the largest ones you're going to find will be the giant. I'm sorry the common stone flies, they often have this like tiger shape. These guys are predators. And so, so they all go around in search of food. They'll typically other other aquatic macro invertebrates. And some of these other stone flies are vegetarian, and they'll eat they'll shred leaves, and they won't necessarily eat the leaves but they'll shred the leaves and eat the bacteria and fungi and everything that's growing on the leaves. And these guys need cold clean water. So, some of these are specialized for for completing their life cycle in the winter. And so for some of these stone flies the summer is the most stressful time of year, because the water gets warm and warm water holds less oxygen. So, some of them will burrow down into the ground and will spend the summer underground where the water there's water and it's colder. Some of them will will spend the summer as an egg, and it will hatch in the fall. The giant stone flies are some of my favorite those I associate with the nicest of the streams in in Maine. And they're kind of spiky and this this picture here doesn't really give it justice often they'll have the more of a spiky appearance on the each of the abdominal segments and on the thoracic segments, and they'll curl up in a little ball. And so if you see a large dark spiky thing that curls into a ball, then think of oh maybe I got a giant stone fly. So, Tom sorry to interrupt but when you say giant how big are we talking about. Yeah, so that's a great term this is all in perspective of size of macro vertebrates so you have things that like the rolled wing and slender slender winter. That will be the size of like a grain of rice, and the giant stone fly might be up to like an inch or inch and a half, but to compare to the other ones these giant. Actually, I take that back giant stone flies can get bigger maybe like two. Maybe two and a half inches. And then the same with the common stone fly some of these guys can get quite large and and. While you're doing the sampling where you are rubbing the rocks and things are floating into the net. Keep an eye out for the giant these common stone flies in particular. They are strong, and they don't care about the water flowing fast they'll just, they'll be tempted to crawl out of the net. So just keep an eye out for them when while you're doing that work you might need to gently shove them back in. All right, so any other questions about the group one so again the group ones have segmented legs and the older larvae have these wing pads. Incomplete metamorphosis, their bodies. That means that they do not make a pupa, they just crawl out of the water and will one last time out of the water pump up the wings fly away. Their bodies are generally armored. They're not they're not squishy and soft. So, Hannah, are there any other questions for this group. Yes, yeah, we have one about the mayfly so how long from a glane to nymph for the main fly. I think it really depends on the species. Some of them. I don't know. I think that some of them, like the small minnow may flies. Some species in that group can have more than one generation in a year, I'm pretty sure. And others. Some of these other ones. They only have one generation. So they'll, they'll only come out of the water once every spring or once every summer depending on their timing for that species. And I don't know if they delay hatching. Some of these again, the summer is the most stressful time of year because the water is warm for some of these critters. And so they might delay the when the eggs hatch to see when the water starts to cool again, and then some of them might just have quit hatch pretty quickly, because they're vulnerable just sitting there as an egg. How's that for a wishy-washy answer. Well, it just means yeah, we'll look into that a little bit more. And hopefully give it, you know, a clear answer. And then I want to ask this because I feel like it gets asked every year and I want to get it out there now because when you're dealing with things like your giant two and a half inch stone flies, and then you got to push it back into the net. Are we worried at all about can they bite or can they sting. While I'm going through I'll mention which ones you might want to worry about. So far, I wouldn't be worried about any of these things. And it'd be more just us being gentle with them to make sure that when we're done they can get back into the water and continue their fruitful life. Especially if you're wanting to try and poke the dragonfly. Please be gentle. Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah, I've dragon flies are chill. They're good. So one other thing I just want to mention. When you're looking in the pan dragon flies will generally crawl around or will use that jet propulsion movement. The damsel flies will will do a crawl around. And if they do swim it will be like a side to side slow movement. The mayflies will have this up and down, like a dolphin, and they'll be quite quick. So if you see something darting across the pan, think may fly. The mayflies tend to crawl and they do this side to side like a lizard type of movement. Just some tips on the behavior that help get you in the right direction. All right, so the next group. Have a clearly defined head. They have a thorax with six segmented legs. And these tend to have a squishy body. They never have wing pads. And these all these insects go through a complete metamorphosis like a monarch butterfly where you have an adult that lays eggs either in the water or over the water. Often the eggs are laid on a rock or plant right on the edge of the water or over the water. So when the eggs hatch the larvae will go into the water. And then they have the larval stage. And then they pupate typically in the water. And then they'll come out and emerge as an adult. And this here is a glossosoma is a type of cat as fly. And we'll start with the cat as flies first. So cat as flies. Again, you have these, you know, they're in the this group because they have these segmented legs. They have a head, a thorax with one, two, three segments, each segment has a pair of legs for a total of six legs. There's an abdomen, typically it's nine abdominal segments if you counted up be nine. They have a squishy body. And they look a little bit like a caterpillar. They are closely related to mods and butterflies. And you can find it this summer in spring. When you have your porch light on, you know, in the evening go out and you'll most likely find cat as flies around your porch light and so look for something that looks like a month. But where a moth will hold its wings flat. The cat as flies, their wings are like tinted. And also, like here, it's like tinted. It's all it from if you look at it in the right direction will be like, like that. The wings, instead of having scales, like a moth or a butterfly. They have scaling wings and their scientific name is tricoptera so hairy wing. And on the rear end. Most cats fly larvae I can think of have these two claws on the rear end. And some of them have gills, but they won't look like the gills on a mayfly or a damsel fly. They'll just be like these like hair, the cares on their body. And whoops. So there's a couple different types of cat as flies there's one of the cat as fly larvae since they're related to mods and butterflies. It's been silk. And so, using that silk, some of them will assemble these mobile homes called cases. And these cases can, depending on the species and where it lives and what materials are available. They'll be, they'll assemble these cases out of rocks and sand, or pieces pieces of sedges and rushes and grasses, or pieces of leaves, or hemlock needles and bark. And if you were doing the more you learn about these, the, the advanced keys and the ones that use by professionals and everything can get into, you can identify the critters based on the shape of the cases and some for some of them. In this case for the basic stream explorers we're just trying to say that it's a cat as fly, and it has a case. You just want to be aware that these things are designed to be well camouflaged and so you'll be, you have to look for them. So again, one of the one strategy you can do is just get stuff in the pan and just spend a minute or two just looking in the pan for movement, and then you'll start seeing things moving around you're like wait that's a bug. No way. And then, and then you'll find these different shaped cases. Some of them are very tiny. So, some of them will be just like a couple hemlock needles that are put together with the silk and moving around. Some will be look like a little snail, but made out of these fine sand. So patience, and be very observant. And then sometimes you can also take a spoon and just gently swirl the contents in the pan and look for things that aren't moving. So that's another way if there's something moving in the opposite direction of the swirling water or something that's just not moving at all. And you can pay attention to those items that might be like a cat as flight as, you know, really grabbed onto the plastic tray, or it might be a mayfly that's swimming in opposite direction of the flowing water. So that's another case. Again, you're just looking for these fleshy bodied critters with legs. And as these guys get bigger, they will abandon their home and build a new case, that sort of thing. So if you, some of these guys, when you collect them and they're in their pan, certain species will be very reluctant to leave their homes. And the critters will be very quick to leave their homes. So you might find them in the home or you might find them just crawling around the tray outside of the home. And it's not the end of the world that they're without a home. These guys are pros they'll build themselves a new home quickly. So another group of cat as flies are those that make underwater nets using their silk. And they have a very similar body shape as the other cat as flies they have a head, three thoracic segments with six legs. They have a soft squishy abdomen. And here's on the rear end. And here's two hooks on the rear end there. But instead of using the silk to cement together a mobile home, they'll make underwater nets. And so here's this one here is a common net spinner. And so you can really see this is like a spider web or a fishing net. And so they design these nets. So the water flows and carries little bits of algae or plant parts or even little invertebrates that will get caught in the net. And that will get caught in the net. And so they're just sitting there and munching and repairing the net and then munching some more on stuff and then repairing their net and they'll spend their life doing that. Another group are these dobson flies and alder flies. The dobson flies can get, they'll start off very small, but they can grow to be quite large so they could be as large as your finger. And these, some of the large dobson fly larvae can live in the water for several years, like three years before deciding to be an adult. And so they are somewhat tolerant of, they're in a somewhat tolerant category. They are a little bit, they're not as sensitive to pollution as the stone flies, for example. But it's also a very good sign to find dobson flies in a stream because it just means that the quality of the water has been good and there's been, these are also predators so there's good food source and the water is good and the habitat is good for a number of years. So that's a good thing to find. The adults are quite large. They can be like three to four inches long depending on the species. They have big, big wings, and the adult males have these elaborate tusks on them. And they are, they are not, won't harm you at all. They just make them look muy macho I guess to the female dobson flies. Another term for dobson flies is a heligrimite. And the, the, I have known of one person who got nipped by a larval dobson fly. It was a big one and it was more defending itself type of thing. So you could just be careful with them. But these guys are giant predators, they go around. And if you were a tiny macro vertebrate. This would be a scary thing coming at you. The older flies are smaller relatives of the dobson flies. They tend to be like a half inch to an inch in size. And they typically found in muddy, sandy type of habitat more often than the dobson flies and more of the rocky and woody type of habitat. So I'll pause here and see if there's any questions about this group. We just had a comment about the dobson flies being biters. Yeah. You can see the big chompers on the larvae. The adults are they're chill, but they, these guys, they can bite, although I've handled them many times without being bit but, but being careful is probably the best approach. So we do include so in the kits there's there's brushes and spoons and little droppers and tweezers. So there's a lot of tools in there that you can use. So you aren't having to put your hands in there. Yes, and in fact, for them for most of the macro vertebrates when you're getting them out of the tray by highly recommend that you don't use your hands that you use the brushes and spoons primarily for the safety of the critters. Yeah, that's a great point. And, and especially if you and what about Tom if you what you what you do with your hands before if you do have to put your hands in there. What do you want to make sure is not on your hands. Yeah, so it's probably best when you are handling the equipment or if you're when you're sorting that you don't have like avoid putting on hand cream or even hand sanitizer. If you do have that sort of stuff on, then try to wash it off well before you start, you know, working with the critters. I don't know if those things would harm the critters but it's, it's a nice precautionary step to make sure that we don't harm them. We'll put it back into the streets. Yeah, that's a great point. And that is we don't have any other questions for this for this section. Okay. So the next group are these critters that have sometimes you can see the head sometimes you can't. They'll have a soft fleshy body and no legs. They don't have the jointed legs, like what we seen earlier, they may have these little bumpy things called pro legs, and they don't have wingpads. These critters go through a complete metamorphosis, and so they'll have the adult, the egg, the larva, the pupa, and then the adult. And, and the larva, the larvae look very different than the adults. And the most abundant types of insects in this group are what are called true flies. And so these have like midge larvae crane flies and black flies. And so midges. This is very enlarged picture so I don't know if you all have been at a out in the evening around your yard or baseball field or a pond and there'll be this little cloud of these little insects just flying around, minding your own business. They're the non biting midges. And so the larvae live in water, and they have, they have, they usually be white or cream colored, and some of them are red color, and they'll have a head, very small head capsule. And there's some of these pro legs here, and sometimes on the, the rear end they'll have some little pro legs. Otherwise, they, they're just look like a grub. And these are tiny. So in the pan you're looking for something that's the size of grain of rice short grain rice or even smaller. And they will sometimes wriggle in the pan a little bit, and some of them are will be a little bit longer. And the ones that are red are really amazing because they have hemoglobin. And so I just, when I found that out the first time I just thought it was very interesting that the hemoglobin that we have in our blood to help get oxygen. And some of the guys have in their bodies to help get oxygen from the water and environments where there may not be a lot of the oxygen so in the bottom sediment of in a pond or in the stream, something like that. So midges in particular will go through some of them can go through multiple generations a year. And they can recolonize quickly. In general, they tend to be somewhat tolerant, and then the ones that are read. They can survive in oxygen poor environments and are more tolerant. Crane flies can range in size from like an inch to three inches. And these eat. Crane flies generally eat leaves and vegetation. And again, often they're not eating the leaves of vegetation for the sake of the, they're not going after that as the food they're going after the, the film of like the slide little slimy film of bacteria and fungi and other little organisms growing on the leaves. The adults crane flies look like giant mosquitoes so if you are ever going around you see this like giant mosquito thing with very long legs flying around. It's a crane fly, and they're peaceful vegetarians so don't they won't bother you at all. The larvae, for the most part, are eat the leaves. Midges, they eat a variety of things mostly they'll eat the king organic matter. There are a couple of types of midges that are predators. And the other group in here people are probably more familiar with and they'd like to be are the black flies. And so we all know what the black fly adults look like, and the larvae have this interesting body shape where they're on the rear end they'll have a suction cup. They'll like a disk with little spines and it will, they'll be able to hang on to a rock or a plant, and then they have these modified mouth parts that they stick out and they will filter feed. So they sit there, moving their head around, and they gather little bits of decaying organic matter a little algae or little tiny zooplankton and they'll, they'll eat that. So one of the neat things about black flies is that while they're sitting there, if they see a predator coming toward them, they have a safety mechanism behavior, where they will release themselves from the substrate that they're on. And they'll float downstream, but they'll leave a silken like bungee cord. And so they later when it's safe they can use their mouth to, you know, basically wind themselves back into where they can attach to a surface again. So again, these guys have a head capsule that you can see, but no legs, no wing pads, no observable gills, crane flies, the head capsule sometimes is inside their body, but you're distinguishing it that it looks like a big grub. No segmented legs, no filaments or gills on the rear end, no wing pads. So these true flies are all in that group. And if you're doing the advanced version of the key there's a few other types of aquatic insects that I'm not covering right now. But any questions so far about this group. Yeah. I think yeah, people are pretty pretty familiar with the black fly. Yeah. Okay, so the final group are insects that you would find as adults. And so the first group are beetles. And the Beatles are tricky because you can find the Beatles as a larval stage or as the adult stage. And so, depending on what type of beetle it is. So in this case, we have a riffle beetle. And this guy has goes through complete metamorphosis so you have the adult that goes then would have an egg, then a larva, and then a pupae, and then an adult. So this these guys have segmented legs, and their bodies are not squishy, they tend to have a little bit of firmer exoskeleton. And these larvae would fall into that group too. But if you were found the adults, they would look like these. So the adults have the adults riffle beetles are tiny, they can be the size of poppy seed with legs to like a grain of rice with legs, and as an adult they need to to breathe and get oxygen just like we do. So the adults beetles have certain adaptations basically to carry a an air bubble underwater with them. So, I'm on to pay the air bubble will either be a very thin layer on their belly, or underneath their wings, or on their rear end, depending on what kind of beetle it is. And if the water is cold enough, and there's enough oxygen in the water, then the oxygen will just replenish from the water to the bubble. And so, so basically the these guys have a scuba tank that they carry around with them underwater. And either it will replenish itself with oxygen, just by having new oxygen come from the water into the air bubble. For some of them, like the really big beetle and some of these diving beetles, you'll be able to watch them and they'll, they'll swim up to the surface and get some fresh air and then swim back down. But all of these beetles have as a larvae has six legs, no wing pads. These goes through the complete metamorphosis. And, and then the adults all have that classic beetle shape. They often will if the ones that crawl around like the riffle beetles these guys just crawl around on rocks in and logs and stuff like that so they have nice legs for helping to hold on and very very pronounced claws for hanging on. And then there's another other ones that are more swimmers and so their legs are flattened or and sometimes will have hairs to help them scurry around or swim around very quickly. Some of them like the diving beetles will spend most of their time underwater and will only come up to the surface to replenish their air bubble. And some of them like the really big beetle as an adult will spend their basic most of their life just on the surface of the water. And they'll just go around in circles, and some of them are large and some of them are small. And they have nice paddle shaped legs to help swim. And the warlic beetles are cool. Because they spend their life at the water, air interface their eyes, their compound eyes are split. So they have a set of eyes that look up into the air. And then a set of eyes that look down into the water so they can see all around them at the same time to look for food items, and also to avoid being caught by predators. And if you handle a warlic beetle adult, sometimes they'll have like a little cherry smell. I don't know if that's like a defensive mechanism that, but it just smells a little bit like cherries. So, I guess basically the rule of thumb is if you have a critter that's large, and you can see that has big chomping mouth parts then be careful of them. Other ones you don't have to be so worried about. One other critter that you might want to be careful with that I don't have a picture here is a back swimmer. And I wonder if I have. Yeah, I think there's a picture of back swimmer here. So back swimmers swim in the water. They're related to water boatman. They are in a group that are typically found in lakes and and in ponds that type of environment so they're not in the stream explorer program, you might come to them if you are sampling the like edge of a slow moving stream. But these guys are called back swimmers because they swim around upside down. And they have a mouth part on there on the other side you can't see it but they have a straw like mouth part where if they went around and caught a prey item they would poke that mouth part into the prey, inject a digestive juice, and then suck out the goodies. And if they can nip you so of all the critters. This is the one here I would be careful of avoid handling with your hands. It just feels like a, like a honey bee sting, but it's something you could do avoid. So again there's lots of different macro invertebrates. I think I should back up and show some of the other ones that I focused on the insects. If you had a healthy stream, you would get a large diversity or wide diversity of macro invertebrates, there's a lot of different habitat niches and habitat complexity. So with the blue ones you have some of the sensitive organisms and you have some greens where are more moderately sensitive, you can have the tolerant ones to that's perfectly normal. And is just when you have predominance of the predominant of the tolerant organisms and no sensitives. That's would be more of an altered stream. Some low gradient, what I mean by low gradient is so some streams that are in the coastal plain, like down near the ocean, like around Portland or Falmouth, that kind of area. Some of them where the slope of the stream is not very steep. It's more of like a slow moving sandy or mucky stream. You could have a hard time finding some of these sensitive organisms in those streams just because of the habitat. So, don't get very discouraged if you, if you are sampling one of those sandier, especially muckier streams, and you aren't finding a lot of these sensitive organisms, it could be just the habitat. So I'm going to back up quickly to mention some of the other things that were not insects. So these are all insects insects. Alright, so here's another critter that I didn't mention is a water penny. A water penny is a baby beetle larva that is it and it's flattened. It looks like in like an ocean there's a critter called a limp it. That's a kind of snail. And there's also freshwater limp it's to, but the water penny. And this is one where if you have stuff in your tray, like some sand and water, if you slowly kind of swirl the water a little bit, you might find the water penny like just hanging on to the tray. And another way to find water pennies would be to pick up any sort of like branch or leaf that's in the pan and just examine it. Some of these insects are really adapted to hang on to something. So given the chance they'll they'll they'll grab on to whatever they can. And so they'll grab on to a leaf or a piece of wood or even another critter. So in the pan you'll sometimes find like a snail with a mayfly on its back. Another thing you could look for our crayfish, they look like little lobsters, but they're freshwater, and they can range in size from being, you know, very tiny tiny when they're very young to being several inches long as an adult. And the crayfish to distinguish them from insects the crayfish have 10 legs. They have two bits, which are a type of snail that are flattened and have that sort of the ones we find in Maine are that kind of shape like a like a bean almost, and they'll be a little bit pyramid in shape where they'll be. They'll be flush against the rock or leaf or or twig, but then they'll get taller in the center. So you can find snails and amphipods. So these are also sometimes called side swimmers or scuds isopods. These in are related to sow bugs that you can find on land leeches. So you can find some leeches and main streams and rivers in general they'll never bother you. So you can just you can just use the spoons and the brushes to help get them out of the pans. There's aquatic worms. The aquatic worms are related to earth worms, but in their body shape is generally a lot thinner. And there tend to be gray to light pink. They're very good. So if you see something that looks like an earthworm but it's very thin. And their bodies tend to be very delicate so you can be careful handling them. They sometimes will break apart. Yeah, so those are the the non insect macron vertebrates that you'd be looking for with a stream explorer. And so that's the rest I have there. And I'd be happy to answer any remaining questions. If you have questions you have a couple options you're welcome to put it in the Q&A. You're also welcome if you want to raise your hand on zoom and I can allow you to talk if you would like to ask your question that way as well. And while we wait to see if any questions come in, I just want to talk about kind of what the next steps would be. So I'm going to be sending out an email to everybody and that's going to have links to all of the materials that you'll need. I know there's a lot of critters and right now it might be a little bit overwhelming. But between the wonderful materials that Tom has created the optional in person workshops and then our support throughout the sampling season. Folks really are able to get in there and start identifying. I think that people kind of get hooked after the first time. So you may may struggle a little bit at the at the beginning or have a few more questions and that's great we welcome any questions any photos. And then as you start going and getting getting more into the treasure hunt you're going to be able to start noticing more and more things. So I will send out an email with all of that information, as well as a sign up sheet for the in person workshops. I know I've heard from a few of you already and I'll be getting back to you about sites and about partners. So in the next, you know in the next week or so we'll help to get everything organized. And so we've got a couple questions coming in. So let's see here is the entire state and one geographic region or their north south differences. It's pretty much the statewide you'll find the same critters. You might be in areas, if you're working in like the county of an original county where there's more limestone in the geology. Those streams tend to have a greater diversity of aquatic insects, compared to some of the, like more acidic mountainous nutrient poor streams like up in the, like to the west western southwestern part of the state. So that you'll find the same critters statewide. I tried to pick select critters statewide, but it's more dependent on where the stream is in the landscape that he might see differences. And that could be something that you could try out. If you're curious, you could try sampling a small stream and going and sampling a little bit larger, like small river, and you might notice that there's differences. We have a couple of questions about just about workshops and things. So, at the end person workshops will we be doing sampling and yes, yes, so that each ones will have one in Falmouth, one in Bridgeston and one in Holden. We will be able to. One of them will have the, will have kind of buckets of waters and buckets of critters that have been collected and then they'll be put on the bends and you'll be able to actually, you know, start searching for them in the Falmouth one we're going to doing at local site where you'll actually be able to get in the water and practice sampling. And then the one is in Holden is at our fields pond location so you'll also be able to get in the water there to actually practice sampling. And then we'll have representatives from our different partners there to help walk through the key and to use the guide and really show you how those things work together. I really, really recommend that folks if you get a chance go to one of these in person workshops it's so much better than what I just did. And it will give you the opportunity to really look at them and starts. It's this eye opening experience where it's like it's a whole world that opens up to you it's really fun. And one thing to kind of talk about it, and to be like oh no like I want to be able to see that it's too small, and then when you start to look in, in there you really can it's pretty cool. Chris is asking if it's okay to start with the advanced key and then if it, it looks like it's going to be a little bit too difficult, can you go back to the simpler one. I would say absolutely. Sure. Yeah, I think you know, which whichever you're more comfortable when go for it. I don't know if you have any other answer there, Tom. No. And I'm, don't be bashful about taking pictures with your, your camera phone and sending them to me. I'm happy to help. If you're not sure what something is, I might not be able to get it back to you right away but I could get back to you eventually. I'm busy in the summer, doing sampling and stuff. I think Tom correct me if I'm wrong but your email address is also on that form right that that data form that we're looking at right now. Yeah, I think I took it off. I cropped it off of this but on the on the paper form it's on there, and also on the guidebook. And if you're not getting emails yet so when you registered for this webinar I now have your email address and so that is the list I'll be using in addition to art to some past lists. So, if you have not received any emails about the in person workshops or anything. Don't worry they haven't been sent out yet. And I will be using this email address, the email address that you registered with. If for any reason you want it sent to a different email address. I am putting my email address in the chat right now just please shoot me a quick email. And I can make sure to update that whichever way you would like to be contacted. So the other question about about rainstorms. So we have some nice summer rainstorms in Maine. So we sample after a rainstorm or should we wait a day or two. It's mostly just the more safety for the for us in that case we don't you don't want to get into water that's moving really quickly where you might, if you don't feel safe doing that. So, it might be if the waters flowing really fast it might be a little harder to, you know, to collect the samples. Otherwise the critters are still going to be there. Right, let's see are there any other questions. So this is a remember this is a kind of all all summer into early fall thing so you have between, you know, now in October, if you'd like to get out there. Let's see here and we have seen it says at the bottom of the key what does the word. So we have the least wanted moderately wanted. So let's see here, referring to at the bottom down there so it says sensitive moderately wanted at least sensitive. You just go over that again the categories. Yeah I have to apologize I think this is a very old slide. And so that was a previous terminology we were messing around with. But we were using sensitive. We're using sensitive moderately sensitive and tolerant. And so that's, that's a mistake down there, because all the critters are wanted. And Chris is asking so so I think we talked about this a little bit yesterday but if we go out twice is it better to do one stream twice or two different streams. And I think we kind of said it's it's up to you so both things are going to be really interesting right a comparison between one stream twice or seeing what's in two different streams. Tom given a thought on is one better than the other. Um, no I think it's personal choice, just whatever you think would be most exciting for for your learning. I have a question about the kits so how do we check out the equipment and how long can we keep it. So in the email that I send out to everyone will be a link to a document that has all of the site locations where you can check out a kit as well as the contact information for the person that you would reach out to to do that. Generally, we would ask that you not keep the kit for more than a week or so. If there is not someone, you know, in line after you and you want to keep it for a little longer please feel free to reach out to that contact and say hey, I want to sample again or there was a big brainstorm and I wasn't able to get out can I hold on to it for a little longer. A lot of times, you know, that will be fine. But there are a couple of times, you know, during the season where it may be a little bit busier so we might ask, you know, if you aren't able to get out maybe to return it so the next person can do it and then you could check it out again. But again, I will provide all that information in terms of where you can check out a kit and who to contact via email. And then we'll also have that on our website as well. Okay, Hannah. Earlier I saw that Jack along had his. Yes. I saw that too and it's not up anymore would you still like to be able to talk. And I'm assuming it's, it's. I'm sorry if I did not pronounce it correctly. But perhaps your question has been answered but if you do still have a question please raise your hand and I can get you unmuted again. We might be okay maybe maybe the question was answered. But we do know we do expect there to be more questions after this. Whether it be about the actual you know the macro invertebrates themselves or logistics or sites. So please feel free to reach out at any time to that conserved at main autobahn.org email. And we're just, you know really starting to it will be starting to gear up and Tom I'm going to get you to stop sharing your screen for just a second. I'll do that for you. There you go. And so yes, again we expect questions. So please please send them through. I will be these will be the recordings will be available. So please look for an email early next week I will send that out with all of the information that we've gone over in various links and things. And then if you have any questions about that you can always always reply back. And that being said I think we're we're. Look at that like really well on time. Tom I want to thank you again so much. We are so lucky to have your expertise with this and it's wonderful your enthusiasm for these critters is great and contagious. So we appreciate it. Thank you. And thank you all for attending. We're really excited again for this year three of stream explores and excited to see what what critters you find and what streams you go to. And I look forward to talking with you all over the season and getting to know you a little bit better. So thank you again. Thank you Tom. Have a great evening everyone.