Identification, Images, & Information
For Insects, Spiders & Their Kin
For the United States & Canada
Photo#27625
Aquatic larva - Chauliodes

Aquatic larva - Chauliodes
Gatineau, PQ, Quebec, Canada
August 3, 2005
Size: about 3 cm
I found this guy under a rock at the mouth of a small creek that flowed into a lake.

Fishfly larva
I went back to the stream where I photographed this guy and took home a specimen, with the intent of rearing it. I gave up that when I discovered they could take up to 5 years to mature, so he is now resting in a vial. Anyways, a little research identified this as a fishfly larva, since it doesn't have adbominal gill tufts like a hellgramite (dobsonfly larva). An excellent document, http://creekconnections.allegheny.edu/Modules/On-LineActivities/AquaticMacros/aquaticinsectfactsheets/fishfly.pdf, is packed with information on fishflies.

fish fly?
There's only images of adults currently in the Guide but there's a pic of a Sialis larva on this page showing abdominal gills and a pointed terminal appendage. Possible?

Dobsonfly Larva
This looks like the Larva of a Dobson fly. The larva are known as Hellgramites.

 
Corydalidae.
Pretty small to be a hellgrammite, though it could be a young one. It is definitely the larva of something in the family Corydalidae.

 
What's That Bug
I was looking at What's That Bug's Hellgramite page. They look very similar to me.