Contains 12,792 taxa as of July 2026.
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Alloperla roberti Surdick, 1981

Robert's stonefly, Illinois sallfly

 

 

Taxonomy & Nomenclature

 

 

Conservation Status

Extinct (WCMC, 1992:208, 1996a,b; Dewalt, 2026; NatureServe, 2026)

Last record: 1860 (Surdick, 1981; Webb & DeWalt, 1997; Dewalt, 2026; NatureServe, 2026)

IUCN RedList status: Extinct

 

B. D. Walsh, inaugural state entomologist of Illinois, collected two Alloperla specimens from Rock Island in 1860. These were assigned as paratypes to Alloperla banksi in 1942 by T. H. Frison in his description of the aforementioned species, but recognized as a new species by R. D. Surdick in 1980, and the paper describing them was published in 1981 (Surdick, 1981; but see Webb & DeWalt, 1997). No further specimens have been acquired despite at least 1 specific expedition carried out by (Webb & DeWalt, 1997) who searched 43 sites in 5 different counties. Given such a thorough genus-specific search (see Ibid. for search methods), a lack of any further records of this species post-1860 is almsot certainly reflective of its extinction, especially given the fact that,

"streams in the region were so heavily impacted due to widespread logging, mining, row crop agriculture, and urban sprawl that sensitive species  of aquatic insects were limited to springheads and springbrooks, and to a very few streams receiving surface drainage."

(Webb & DeWalt, 1997:1)

 

Distribution & Habitat

Rock Island, Illinois, USA

 

Biology & Ecology

 

Hypodigm

Holotype: MCZT 32559 (male)
 
Full entry can be found [url=http://mcz-28168.oeb.harvard.edu/mcz/FMPro?-db=species.fm&-format=species_card_full.htm&-lay=web&-sortfield=order&Genus=Alloperla&-max=10&-recid=12597832&-find=]here[/url].

 

Media

 

 

References

Original scientific description:

Surdick, R. F. (1981). New Nearctic Chloroperlidae (Plecoptera). Great Basin Naturalist  41(3): 349-359.

 

Other references:

Baillie, J. and Groombridge, B. (eds). (1996). 1996 IUCN Red List of Threatened Animals. pp. 378. International Union for Conservation of Nature, Gland, Switzerland and Cambridge, UK.

Dewalt, E. (2026). Alloperla roberti. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2026: e.T879A21426261. Accessed on 19 July 2026.

DeWalt, R. E. and Grubbs, S. A. (2011). Updates to the stonefly fauna of Illinois and Indiana. Illiesia 7(3): 31-50.

DeWalt, R. E., Favret, C. and Webb, D. W. (2005). Just how imperiled are aquatic insects? A case study of stoneflies (Plecoptera) in Illinois. Annals of the Entomological Society of America 98(6): 941-950.

Frison, T. H. (1942). Studies of North American Plecoptera, with special reference to the fauna of Illinois. Bulletin of the Illinois Natural History Survey 22: 235-355.

Groombridge, B. (ed.). (1994). 1994 IUCN Red List of Threatened Animals. IUCN, Gland, Switzerland and Cambridge, UK.

Harris, M. A. and Webb, D. W. (1995). The stoneflies (Plecoptera) of Illinois revisited. Journal Kansas Entomological Society 67: 340-346.

IUCN. (1990). IUCN Red List of Threatened Animals. IUCN, Gland, Switzerland and Cambridge, UK.

NatureServe. (2026). Alloperla roberti: Illinois Sallfly. NatureServe Network Biodiversity Location Data accessed through NatureServe Explorer [web application]. NatureServe, Arlington, Virginia. Available at: https://explorer.natureserve.org/ [Accessed 19 July 2026]

Stark, Bill P., Stewart, Kenneth W., Szczytko, Stanley W. and Baumann, Richard W. (1998). Common Names of Stoneflies (Plecoptera) from the United States and Canada. Ohio Biological Survey Notes 1: 1-18.

Stark, Bill P., Stewart, Kenneth W., Szczytko, Stanley W., Baumann, Richard W. and Kondratieff, B. C. (2012). Scientific and common names of Nearctic stoneflies (Plecoptera), with corrections and additions to the list. The Caddis Press, Miscellaneous Contribution No. 1. 20 pp.

WCMC (World Conservation Monitoring Centre). (1992). Global Biodiversity: Status of the Earth's living resources. London: Chapman & Hall. xx + 594 pp.

WCMC (World Conservation Monitoring Centre). (1996a). Alloperla roberti. In: IUCN 2010. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2010.4. (http://www.iucnredlist.org). Downloaded on 25 April 2011.

WCMC (World Conservation Monitoring Centre). (1996b). Alloperla roberti. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 1996: e.T879A13088251. https://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.1996.RLTS.T879A13088251.en. Accessed on 30 June 2022.

Webb, Donald W., and DeWalt, R. Edward. (1997). A search for Alloperla roberti Surcik in northwestern Illinois (Plecoptera: Chloroperlidae). Technical report prepared for Division of Natural Heritage, Office of Resource Conservation, Illinois Department of Natural Resources, Accessed 13 May 2012.

Webb, Donald W. and Harris, M. A. (1993). Survey of 21 rare species of stoneflies (Plecoptera) of Illinois. Illinois Natural History Survey, Center for Biodiversity Technical Report 1993(3): 1-14.