Floating yellow bugs on Dog Mountain

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adamschneider
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Floating yellow bugs on Dog Mountain

Post by adamschneider » January 21st, 2022, 5:43 pm

I went up Dog Mountain today. Near the summit, there were a lot of little bright yellow things on the trail. I thought they might be clumps of pollen, until I looked closer:
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They're bugs! Some kind of larvae, by the looks of it. Some were sitting still or crawling a little, but most of them were floating (often in rafts) on the snowmelt water on the trail, and the wind was spinning them around and blowing them downstream. Anyone seen these before? Anyone know what they are?

Video:

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adamschneider
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Re: Floating yellow bugs on Dog Mountain

Post by adamschneider » January 21st, 2022, 5:50 pm

Well, I just answered my own question, thanks to iNaturalist's ID robots: they're probably "golden snow-fleas" (Hymenaphorura cocklei), a kind of springtail — which are a lot like insects but aren't exactly insects. And these are probably adults, not larvae.
Last edited by adamschneider on December 24th, 2022, 8:57 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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lordgares
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Re: Floating yellow bugs on Dog Mountain

Post by lordgares » January 21st, 2022, 8:49 pm

I saw something similar all over the trail when I was up around Bonney Meadows at the end of October. They don't look quite as bright yellow as what you saw though. They were ALL OVER when I dropped down from Echo Point and went around the trail that skirts the meadow. I had wondered at the time what they were but then kind of forgot about it until you posted this.
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adamschneider
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Re: Floating yellow bugs on Dog Mountain

Post by adamschneider » January 21st, 2022, 10:36 pm

It's possible that they were a different species. You can browse the possibilities on BugGuide: https://bugguide.net/node/view/258364/bgpage

Or maybe just a paler population, like these in Lane County: https://bugguide.net/node/view/2068805

vacagol
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Re: Floating yellow bugs on Dog Mountain

Post by vacagol » January 25th, 2022, 2:44 pm

I saw the same bugs recently but didn't even paid attention to them. Honestly, I didn't even thought that these were bugs.

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