There’s a certain contentment knowing coarse fish will be around to confuse and entertain future generations of fly fishermen. They’ll be speaking with the same awe of “Silver’s”, “Grass”, and “Common’s” that we’ve reserved for Brown, Brook, and Rainbow.

… and while they’ll continue to siphon mud for hints of protein, we’ll still be able to gear up for dusk and the traditional hatch of dry flies…

All those Catskill dries will have long vanished into antiquity, replaced by the Savior of the Tainted Water, the Thraulodes quevedoensis.

Discovered this year in Ecuador, the Thraulodes Mayfly appears to be pollution insensitive and thrives on concrete, human waste, and radiation.

United States protocols assume mayflies collectively are indicators of high water quality, but the Thraulodes quevedoensis signals that the assumption might not be entirely true in the lowland tropics of South America.

Flowers offered his theory on why this species of mayflies is able to tolerate the polluted conditions of the river, which gets sewage directly from the city and agricultural pollutants from farms upstream.

“During the wet season, the river gets torrential rains from the Andes Mountains,” he said. “During the dry season there are shallow spots in the river and algae grows. This can act as a purification system, and I believe this can keep the pollutants below critical level.”

The flies of tomorrow may sound similar, but us brownline types thrive on a hint of humor mixed with a leavening of pure insouciance, evidenced by our lust for the Fan Winged Corn Niblet, the Light Twinkie, and Oil Spill Gordon.

… the Bad News is future generations will be just as pissed, especially when their savior sports a 5.6mm body length … an #18 if they’re lucky …

Tags: Thraulodes Quevedoensis, pollution insensitive mayfly, Equador, Dr. Will Flowers, Catskill dry fly