Thursday, April 10, 2008

Help, We Have Been Invaded by Mayflies

Over the last couple of weeks we have been invaded by Mayflies. There are billions of them. I would not mind them if they stayed outside, but the keep getting in our house.

I did a little web reading on these critters and here is what I found. They are of the order Ephemeroptera. The nymphs live from three months to two years. The adults live from thirty minutes to a few days. There are two adult stages first the Dun which molts into a Spinner. The Spinners are the trouble makers at my house. According to Wikipedia, the adult’s sole purpose is to reproduce. The Spinner’s mouth is vestigial and the belly is filled with air. All they do is fly around, mate, lay eggs over a body of water, and die. They are a food source for cat fish and bass.

Now I know a little bit about these flying critters. I still have the unexplained nightmare of why hundreds of them must fly into my house and commit suicide in my kitchen sink and bathtub?

10 comments:

  1. Wonder if you could put a pan of water outside away from the house if they would go there instead. I have had problems with the Asian ladybugs getting in the house, but never mayflies.

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  2. Yuck. Every once in a while we get an ant swarm where all these ants with wings somehow get into the house. Nasty.

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  3. Oh man barbee, If I remember correctly those lady bugs smell bad. Good idea about the pan of water. I will give it a shot.

    Hi bonnie, yes yuck and double yuck.

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  4. Well, I guess that's one advantage for having all of this snow?!?

    I wonder why they're called Mayflies if they show up un April shouldn't they be called Aprilflies?

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  5. Beats me cinj, the actually showed up in March.

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  6. They are the strangest things. I knew nothing about them until now. Thank you so much.~~Dee

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  7. They've invaded my house too. My goldfish are in heaven. So they're good for something around here.

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  8. Hi Dee, they are weird. You don't see them in OK?

    Hi sister, at least your fish are getting something out of this.

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  9. HELLOOOOOOO close the door!

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