At How Caple: Touching May Flies

As you walk along a riverbank on a warm summer day you might see some small insects dancing above the water. They are probably mayflies and they may have been dancing over that river for thousands of years! My boys find them fascinating.

The common name 'Mayfly' is quite misleading because this group of insects can appear throughout the year. In fact, at one point they were called dayflies due to some of the species having an adult life of a single day. The common name comes from the habit of one species, Ephemera danica, which emerge as adults when the Mayflower or Hawthorn is in bloom.

Mayflies were one of the first winged insects, with fossils dating back over 300 million years - long before the dinosaurs! There are 51 species of mayfly known from the British Isles today and they range in size from less than 5mm to over 20mm.

Populations of mayflies and other riverflies are declining in the UK. As a member of the Riverfly Partnership, Buglife.org is working with other organisations to try and understand the cause of these declines. Once the causes are known action can be taken to reverse the declines and protect beautiful mayflies..... Hopefully we can love them for a long while longer!



(source: www.bug life.org)