Contribution to the knowledge of the family Caenidae (Insecta: Ephemeroptera) from Madurai District, Tamil Nadu

Three new species of Caenis Stephens viz., Caenis kaegies sp. n., C. venkataramani sp. n., and C. arunachalami sp. n., are described based on larvae and reared subimagines and/or imagines from Madurai, Tamil Nadu. Two more species of Caenis are recognized and described (from eggs and imagoes) but are not formally named. Additional characters are mentioned for C. americani Srinivasan, Sivaruban, Barathy, Malzacher & Isack, 2021 and C. maduraiensis Balasubramanian & Muthukatturaja, 2021. The egg morphology of all the known species of Caenis from Tamil Nadu is described. The total number of Caenis species is thereby increased to seven in the Madurai District and nine in South India. The genus Clypeocaenis Soldan is recorded for the first time in the Madurai District, with the species Clypeocaenis kaveri Balasubramanian and Muthukatturaja, 2021, whose description is amended. Identification keys to the adults, larvae, and eggs of the known Caenis species from South India are also provided.