But why does it have an anal claw?

Submitted by Joel Mattingly on Tue, 2017-06-06 00:00

Today was an amazing day, we all learned so much, and had fun doing it, whether it was electrofishing, water and soil sampling, floating the river, lectures on geographical and ecological histories of the area and river, the experience was great. There were several things I saw, did, and learned that left impressions. It's hard to narrow it down to just one thing to blog about, without writing a novel; but to pick one of those things, perhaps being the juvenile minded person I am, occured after our group finished collecting electrofied fish and started scraping up creatures from the mucky river floor and placing them in a tub to be identified. As we were looking at the different types of creatures, their attributes, and how to identify them, I noticed that one creature called a Caddisfly, had a few very interesting features, one of which is that it lives in a protective shell casing that it made itself, and the other is that it has an anal claw. What the heck is an anal claw, and what is it used for, I asked? "To grab onto rocks someone said", another suggested that it might be for "mating purposes?" I was thinking that maybe it had something to do with that mobile home on it's back? As it turns out, I was right, The young Caddisfly actually uses its anal claw to grip onto its shell. Cool huh?

Comments

Kris Ferrin's picture

Thanks for sharing your information.  I fly flish and I have never heard of a Caddisfly.  My husband and I tie our own flies, but he has never mentioned this kind of fly before.  The picture of it is amazing.  It actually has a claw to grip onto things.  I am a distance learner and wished I could have gotten into the classroom this week with you because it looks like you are learning a lot and experiencing nature to the fullest.  The videos of the muddy water is amazing and how we learned the three causes for in in Marsh Creek.  I have a major in Special Education and am taking this credit to count towards my recertification :).

Joel Mattingly's picture

The ones we looked at today were considered larva, I guess they start off under water, build a shell, then when they grow up, they leave the water, have wings, look like this as an adult.

Carla Hansen's picture

What are you learning from the electro fishing?  I know it can tell you the number of fish and the kind of fish, but what other kind of info does this provide?  And how are they using it?

Joel Mattingly's picture

Along with the electrofishing, we also took a range of water samples such as: temp, flow rate, conductivity, terbidity... And we also looked at the macro organisms that coexist in the area. All of this data gets compiled to give us the big picture of the ecosystem.

Maria Wilson's picture

So many little wonders in Idahome.  Definitely need to show some of these critters to my students under a dissecting scope.   I remember a rather scathing comment from Rosemary Smith about the pronunciation of dissection.  Being interested in our world is a gift I try to share with my students.  Thank you adventurers for your enthusiastic comments.