A Forward by Ken Crick

  Figure 13

Figure 12 gives an impression of the size variation between three species of Darter. Red Veined Darter is similar in size to Ruddy Darter.

Care needs to be exercised on water bodies with an unknown Darter species count or when dealing with species taken from water bodies where multiple species of Darter are known to be on the wing.

It is good practice to identify any specimen, be it Darter or some other species, using as many key features as possible.

The dorsal spines shown in figure 13 will help guide towards one of the four main species, see main menu – Larvae – Darter species.