May, 1953 
10 families; Palingeniidae, Polymitarcidae, 
Ephemeridae, Potamanthidae, Leptophle- 
biidae, Ephemerellidae, Caenidae, Baetidae, 
Siphlonuridae, and Ecdyonuridae. These 
families he placed in the order Ephemerida. 
It may be noted that Klapalek’s classification 
bears considerable resemblance to the earlier 
classification of Banks (1900:246), and, as 
Ulmer (1920a: 98) remarks, the 10 families 
in Klapalek’s classification correspond almost 
exactly to 10 of the unnamed subdivisions 
of the family Ephemeridae that Eaton had 
indicated in his monograph. 
Ulmer (1914), in a new classification of 
the German mayflies, added the family 
Oligoneuriidae. 
Bengtsson (1917) added the family Ame- 
tropidae to the classification and changed 
the name of the Ecdyonuridae of Klapalek’s 
classification to the Heptageniidae. The 
same year, Lestage (1917) published a 
classification of the Palearctic mayfly nymphs 
in which he used only the families Ephemer- 
idae, Heptageniidae, Baetidae, Oligoneuri- 
idae, and the new family Prosopistomatidae. 
Three years later, Ulmer (1920a:99) 
published a revised classification for the 
mayflies of the world in which he combined 
the essential features of all the preceding 
classifications. He elevated the three sub- 
families of Needham’s classification to sub- 
orders, with 14 families beneath them, but 
no subfamilies. Ulmer’s classification was 
arranged as follows: 
Suborder Ephemeroidea 
Family Palingeniidae 
Family Polymitarcidae 
Family Ephemeridae 
Family Potamanthidae 
Suborder Baetoidea 
Family Leptophlebiidae 
Family Ephemerellidae 
Family Caenidae 
Family Baetidae 
Family Oligoneuriidae 
Family Prosopistomatidae 
Suborder Heptagenioidea 
Family Baetiscidae 
Family Siphlonuridae 
Family Ametropodidae 
Family Ecdyonuridae 
( Heptageniidae) 
A few years later, Handlirsch (1925: 415) 
published a much more conservative classifi- 
cation for the mayflies of the world. In 
this he placed all the forms in one family, 
Burks: THE Mayertigs oF ILLINOIS 
but employed a number of subfamilies and 
tribes, as follows: 
Family Ephemeridae 
Subfamily Siphlurinae 
Tribe Siphlurini 
Tribe Ametropodini 
Tribe Ecdyurini 
Subfamily Baetiscinae 
Subfamily Prosopistomatinae 
Subfamily Baetidinae 
Subfamily Caenidinae 
Subfamily Leptophlebiinae 
Tribe Ephemerellini 
Tribe Leptophlebiini 
Subfamily Ephemerinae 
Tribe Ephemerini 
Tribe Potamanthini 
Tribe Polymitarcini 
Tribe Palingeniini 
Subfamily Oligoneuriinae 
Ulmer (1933) later revised his classifi- 
cation of 1920 but made no changes in the 
arrangement of suborders and families. The 
same year, Spieth (1933) published a paper 
on the phylogeny of mayflies. His con- 
clusions, based on a study of adult wings 
and male genitalia and nymphal gills and 
mouthparts, were that the North American 
mayflies represented four superfamilies and 
eight families, as follows: 
Superfamily Siphlonuroidea 
Family Siphlonuridae 
Family Heptageniidae 
Family Baetidae 
Superfamily Ephemeroidea 
Family Leptophlebiidae 
Family Ephemeridae 
Family Ephemerellidae 
Superfamily Caenoidea 
Family Caenidae 
Superfamily Baetiscoidea 
Family Baetiscidae 
Two years later, The Biology of Mayflies 
(Needham et al. 1935) appeared. In this 
work the mayflies were divided into three 
families (the three subfamilies of Needham’s 
earlier classification) and 17 subfamilies: 
Family Ephemeridae 
Subfamily Palingeniinae 
Subfamily Ephoroninae 
Subfamily Ephemerinae 
Subfamily Potamanthinae 
Subfamily Campsurinae 
Subfamily Neoephemerinae 
Family Heptageniidae 
Subfamily Heptageninae 
