I was peering at a small insect sitting under a leaf. The insect, no more than an inch in size, had large spherical red eyes that peered out at me. It had dainty, almost-transparent wings held at right angles above its body and two long thread-like tails. I recognised the insect that I was looking at — it was a mayfly.
Mayflies are fragile-looking insects that belong to the order Ephemeroptera. While this complicated name need not be remembered, the meaning of this word in Greek is interesting. In Greek, the word ‘ephemeros’ means ‘short-lived’ while the word ‘pteron’ means ‘wings’.
The reason for this name is that the adult mayfly has the shortest life-span of any known insect. Adult mayflies live only for a few minutes to a day, depending on the species. Mayflies emerge only to mate and then die. What is even more interesting is that the rest of the life cycle of the mayfly that includes eggs, larva, pupa and nymphs (young ones of insects), takes between a year or two to be completed. Imagine an adult life of less than a day, and then a whole year to grow up!
The name ‘mayfly’ is used because, generally, the insect emerges during the month of May. However, this is not exactly true, because the mayfly I spotted was a week ago in the month of March, and they can emerge in spring or the monsoon season.
The mayfly’s life cycle is aquatic, so they need water to be able to complete their life cycle. Their eggs are laid in water and sink to the bottom. The rest of its life cycle is completed in water.
Because of their short life spans, adult mayflies do not feed. However, it is easy to watch them because they are attracted to light. Hence during monsoons, large numbers can be seen gathered near light sources, especially near forested areas and water sources. So the next time you want to see a mayfly, head to the light bulbs outside your homes during the monsoon. On occasion, during a mass emergence, the walls of your homes can be covered by hundreds of mayflies!
While watching the mayfly under the leaf, I was left with the unanswered query — what makes the mayfly have a short life span as an adult, and a much longer life cycle? What made these dainty insects adopt such a unique strategy to survive and multiply?
It’s unanswered mysteries of this kind that keep my interest in nature alive!
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