Facts

 

·         Fishermen sometimes call these bugs “rockrollers” or “stickbait” because of their unique casings.

·         They are case makers.

Photo thanks to Upper Delaware River Insects

• The cases of males are about 3 mm shorter then their female counterpart (Gallepp 1974).

·         On the scutum they have a small pair of warts and on the scutellum they have a larger pair of warts.

·          Are the only tube case makers without the lateral and dorsal humps on the first abdominal segment.

·         Some of the most successful fisherman’s caddisflies are patterned like this species. Flies such as Grannom,

        Dark Grey, or Dark Brown Caddis, and Shadfly are patterned after this species.

·         Good for trout fishing.

·         The term “traveling sedge” refers to the ovipositing females that skim the water surface or fly up and down the stream, periodically descending to the water surface and briefly touching the surface with the end of their abdomen.

·         Closely related to butterflies and moths.

·         Some jewelry is made from cases.

 

·          Poem about this bug by Edna St. Vincent Millay:

                                                             I wound myself in a white cocoon of singing,

All day long in the brook’s uneven bed,

Measuring out my soul in a mucous thread;

Dimly now to the brook’s green bottom clinging,

Me behold me, a worm spun out and dead,

Walled in an iron house of silky singing.

(Facts From all references see on references page)