Alaska Forestfly
http://lsid.speciesfile.org/urn:lsid: Plecoptera.speciesfile.org: TaxonName:6350
Nemoura species E: Ricker 1944:177.
Nemoura sp. A: Weber 1950:175.
Nemoura normani Ricker 1952:37. Type locality – Mackenzie River, Fort Norman, Northwest Territories (Holotype ♀ and Paratype ♀ examined) Nemoura normani: Illies 1966:209.
Nemoura normani: Stewart & Oswood 2006:78.
Distribution. Canada: NT. USA: AK (DeWalt et al. 2018).
Diagnosis. Nemoura normani was described from the holotype female and one paratype female (Ricker 1952) and is still unknown from the male stage. The females were described as “noticeably larger” than both N. arctica and N. trispinosa and exhibit subtle differences in the shape of the subgenital plate (Ricker 1952). Stewart and Oswood (2006) examined the paratype female (Alaska, Anaktuvik Pass, 6 July 1949, preserved in alcohol) during their study of the stoneflies of Alaska and western Canada but were unable to collect additional material. We likewise studied the paratype female and determined that it was indeed a Nemoura female with the correct wing venation, sclerotized cerci, and no cervical gills. The color of the wings are fumose in alcohol. This species is perhaps also absent from the Yukon (Stewart and Ricker 1997). Hence, the two females remain the only specimens of this species collected and none since 1949. Males or molecular data are needed to determine if this is a valid species, another Nemoura species (Ricker, 1964), or a junior synonym of either N. arctica or N. sahlbergi.
Conclusions
We present morphological evidence with SEM micrographs of the male epiprocts and cerci to propose that Nearctic N. rickeri and Nearctic N. trispinosa are junior synonyms of Holarctic N. arctica and Palearctic N. sahlbergi, respectively. Hence, both N. arctica and N. sahlbergi exhibit Holarctic distributions. On a similar note, Boumans & Baumann (2012) synonymized Amphinemura linda (Ricker, 1952), a species recognized for ca. 65 years, with A. palmeni (Koponen, 1917) using a combination of external reproductive morphology plus mitochondrial COI subunit and nuclear 28S gene sequence data. Amphinemura palmeni likewise is a Holarctic species (DeWalt et al. 2018).