meltwater stonefly | North Fork Preservation Association

Glacier Park’s meltwater stonefly is a candidate species for addition to the endangered species list . . .

An obscure aquatic insect found exclusively in the high alpine streams of Glacier National Park will remain a high-priority candidate for endangered species protection because it is at risk of extinction due to climate change, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced last week.

The rare stonefly, called Lednia tumana, has narrow temperature requirements and lives only in cold-water streams fed by Glacier Park’s melting glaciers and snowfields – a mountain ecosystem rapidly disappearing due to global warming. It was included on the most recent list of 192 candidate species eligible for protection under the Endangered Species Act. However, it did not receive emergency listing for protection.

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An interesting article on rare, cold-water insect species found in Glacier National Park and, if you read carefully, the North Fork . . .

Slowly but surely, Joe Giersch has been scouring streams below glaciers and snowfields in Glacier National Park for rare and mysterious aquatic insects that in some cases haven’t been detected anywhere else on earth.

The effort has been paying off for Giersch, an aquatic entomologist with the U.S. Geological Survey who is based out of West Glacier.

“There’s a whole host of these alpine stream insects that are not only isolated below these high alpine streams, but many of these species are only found in this part of the world,” Giersch said.

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