Mayflies

Canterbury Museum houses a significant collection (over 49,000 specimens) of mayflies, which has been identified by Terry Hitching, a leading authority on this group. This collection is particularly valuable since it has relatively precise locality information. Mayflies are well-recognised as sensitive indicator species in freshwater environments and mayfly surveys are a standard part of water quality assessment.

Our mayfly collection has been publicly shared with biodiversity data aggregator the Atlas of Living Australia.

Image: Female subimago of Zephlebia nebulosa. Credit: Bryce McQuillan.