{"id":12145,"date":"2018-05-24T12:59:33","date_gmt":"2018-05-24T17:59:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/treefolkstest.wpengine.com\/?p=12145"},"modified":"2018-05-24T12:59:33","modified_gmt":"2018-05-24T17:59:33","slug":"bug-of-the-month-mayfly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.treefolks.org\/es\/2018\/05\/24\/bug-of-the-month-mayfly\/","title":{"rendered":"Bug of the Month: May – Mayfly"},"content":{"rendered":"

Written by Collin McMichael – Program Assistant<\/a><\/strong>\"Mayfiles<\/p>\n

Welcome to Bug of the Month! Since it\u2019s now May, the weather is warming up and Texans are beginning to head en masse<\/em> to the gorgeous rivers of this great state.\u00a0 It only seems appropriate that we would start this column out with an appropriately named, aquatic insect: the mayfly!\u00a0 Mayflies, in the insect order Ephemeroptera<\/em>, are most commonly encountered as adults with four prominent wings held stiffly out from the body, and often have several tail-like protrusions from their posterior.\u00a0 \u201cMayflies\u201d is one word instead of \u201cmay flies\u201d because they are not true flies, which all belong to the insect order Diptera<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Mayflies are so named because they often have \u201cmass emergences\u201d along rivers in the spring, often in May.\u00a0 When spring rolls around, the mayfly lifestyle undergoes a dramatic shift from aquatic to aerial.\u00a0 The larvae do something wholly unique within the insects: they molt into a life stage known as a sub-imago, the only known non-adult, insect life-stage to be able to fly.<\/p>\n

Sub-imagos swarm out of rivers by the thousands on opaque wings, fly up to overhanging branches and molt into their final, clear-winged adult stage.\u00a0 Once they have successfully wriggled out of their final chitinous constraint, a mayfly will fly above the river to form mating clouds with its comrades that are often large enough to show up on weather radar.\u00a0 After mating, mayflies do not live long.\u00a0 Males wither quickly and can form heaps of dead bugs during large emergence events. \u00a0Females of some species wait to die after laying their eggs while others simply begin to fall apart on the wing, apparently with the hope that their eggs will land safely in the water.<\/p>\n

Mayflies are important residents in the rivers of Texas and much of the world.\u00a0 They, along with dragonflies, are among one of the earliest lineages of insect to ever evolve.\u00a0 Mayflies are an important part of a group known as primary consumers, or plant-eaters, that feed the rest of the inhabitants of the waterway. \u00a0Algae grow on rocks and debris along the river bottom using the light from the sun to power photosynthesis.\u00a0 Mayflies and other primary consumers eat the algae.\u00a0 As these little herbivores scuttle among the muck, they are in turn eaten by fish and other secondary consumers that are in turn eaten by tertiary consumers and so on. This movement of energy through a food chain, or trophic-web, is known as a trophic cascade.\u00a0 Without the transfer of energy up a trophic cascade provides, Texas\u2019 rivers would be devoid of fish, birds, frogs, otters, turtles, and, possibly to some people\u2019s delight, snakes.\u00a0 This makes mayflies and other benthic invertebrates very important aspects of river ecosystems!<\/p>\n

Next time you\u2019re out by the river, take a second to look at the bugs around you.\u00a0 Setting up lights near a river around dusk and early evening is a great way to attract mayflies.\u00a0 If you\u2019re lucky you may catch a mass emergence!<\/p>\n

Click here to read June’s BOTM<\/a><\/strong><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Written by Collin McMichael – Program Assistant Welcome to Bug of the Month! Since it\u2019s now May, the weather is warming up and Texans are beginning to head en masse…<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[100,57,49],"tags":[61],"class_list":["post-12145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-botm","category-news","category-newsletter","tag-newsletter-2"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t