If you live near certain bodies of water, then you know it’s that time of the year when you need to make sure all your lights are shut off before the sun goes down . . .
That’s right. The mayflies are back! People also call them fishflies. For a while there, I actually completely forgot mayflies existed. I grew up on the other side of Michigan. There were plenty of mayflies in town where I grew up, they’d cover the gas station (I’m being dramatic, we didn’t just have a single gas station in town. We had two).
Then I made my way to the center of the state before settling down in Metro Detroit. The biggest nuisance bug I had in the center of the state was just a lot of stink bugs. I still see stink bugs now, just not as many. Which, I consider a win. Because as annoying as mayflies are, they are pretty short-lived and after a couple summers of crunching, I got used to them again.
Honestly, I’m starting to kind of think they’re cool. They don’t even gross me out. Which, is shocking because most bugs gross me out.
The life cycle of a mayfly
Here are some more fun facts from the MSU Extension, that you may or may not already know.
The life cycle of a mayfly is incredibly short. Within 48 hours they develop wings, fly towards land, mate, and die. There are at least 126 mayfly species in Michigan, and the giant mayfly is found across most of the United States. A single mayfly will lay 4,000 to 8,000 eggs on the water’s surface. The eggs drop to the bottom of the water and hatch into larvae known as naiads. The larvae live underwater for one to two years and feed on algae and other plant material.
The naiads turn into subimago, which can fly. The subimagos fly toward the shore and within 24 hours molt a final time into an adult. These hatches usually happen in June or July in southern Michigan. Mayflies can be as long as 1 inch, that includes their tails. The gnarliest fact is that mayflies don’t have any mouths and their digestive systems are full of air. They only live a very short amount of time and they’re here for one thing -- to make more mayflies.
It can get kind of gross when their carcasses pile up, and they have a rotting fish smell. But birds and bats will eat them -- and they can be used as fishing bait. If you live somewhere where the mayflies fly, you just need to turn off the lights to keep them away. You don’t need to resort to insecticides.