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The Almost Official MAYFLY PAGE (If you can get official about mayflies) |
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The Almost Official MAYFLY PAGE (If you can get official about mayflies) |
Sometime around the middle of May and lasting through June and into July, there is a plague of insects that strikes the city of Port Clinton, Ohio, and other Lake Erie shoreline cities, towns, and villages. This plague is outdone only by those described in the Bible (or so it seems that way to townsfolk) of great hordes of insects invading the land and laying it to waste. Fortunately, this insect is totally harmless... unless you are sliding on them in your car. They are drawn to any light source - coating the sides of buildings and telephone poles. They are actually a handsome bug... windswept transparent wings, two long graceful tails no thicker than a hair, streamlined body... the main problem... they stink like dead fish! What am I talking about, you ask.... The now famous Mayflies of Port Clinton, Ohio! What's in a Name? Fish or Cut Bait
Just the Facts, Ma'am Mayflies usually live for 24-72 hours. Don't forget that they've already spent 1-2 years on the bottom of the lake as a nymph living burrowed in the mud. Within that three days, though, they manage to get into about everything you can imagine. I have dead mayflies lying around on the sidewalks, in spider webs, on the back porch, etc. They'll go anywhere where's there's light at night. Wear a white shirt outside at night and you'll see what I mean. Many mayfiles stack up on the streets below street lights. This is where they land after they get tired of flying around the light for hours on end. Once on the street, they are usually run over by cars and make this "snapping" sound and it's all over. If its dry, they turn into a dust after several hours of traffic. If it's raining, they turn into a thick soup that smells something awful (read 'real dead fish'). The City of Port Clinton has gained approval from the Environmental Protection Agency for the very first mayfly composting site in America! Now isn't that quite a claim to fame. That may even be better than Port Clinton's locally known name - 'Parking lot for Put-In-Bay!'  Mayflies covering grape leaves.
The Juice on the Bug . . . BugJuice?  Mayflies covering the front of a house in Port Clinton. History Lesson My mother can remember being a little girl growing up in Sandusky, Ohio in the 1930's (before the days of great pollution) and watching the mayflies swarm into town. Cars would slide on the piles of mayflies in the street and cause accidents. From what I have read and heard from the old timers, we are not at the point it was before Lake Erie was polluted, but, if mayfly populations keep improving, I believe we'll get to that point again. Port Clinton now posts signs at several entrances to the city warning of slippery road conditions due to the mayfly hatch.
 Varieties
Swarms of Mayflies In the evening sky, you can see them swarming... well, not swarming... just flying around like crazy. They're not the greatest flyers, but they do well enough to get around. I watched one behind the house one afternoon out of the breeze where he could fly without getting blown. He would fly up to the height of the house peak then spread his wings and glide back down to about ten feet above the ground. Then flutter back up... and glide back down. I was reminded of the book Jonathon Livingston Seagull. He did this for about ten minutes until he flew away out of sight.
Mayflies are more plentiful on odd number years. The Mayflies plan for this... no, just kidding. 1998 was a light year and 1999 turned out to be a bumper crop of June Bugs!! The city turned out all street lights within 1 block of the lake. This doesn't help much as every night you can watch them fill the air at dusk. I was again reminded of the locust plague mentioned in the Bible. It's quite a site. On the evening of June 22, 2003, the sun had set and mayflies filled the skies around Port Clinton. I attempted to capture them on camera. These pics give you a fairly good idea what it looked like. After you've viewed each pic, just click your back button to return to this page. Every black speck you see against the blue sky is a mayfly in flight. |
| Shedding caught on FILM!!!! These remarkable pics were taken on the south side of my previous home in mid June 1999. They show the shedding, or molting, process that many mayflies undergo. After I remembered what the bugs do just before shedding, it was easier to find one. What is that, you ask? Normally june bugs keep their wings up and together and their bodies arched proudly back with their two front legs up and together. When they are ready to shed, they get a firm grip with all six legs (they also do that in windy conditions - like on your car windshield at 40 mph) and spread their wings out flat against whatever they happen to be hanging on to. You can literally watch them crawl out of their skin. The process usually takes about 5 minutes. After they molt, I see no visible difference. They look exactly the same as before. Sometimes, if their grip wasn't good enough, the legs will let go and they will be caught half in and half out with no way to pull themselves out of the skin. They usually get out, though and what is left is a white shell that weighs almost nothing and come floating down like snowflakes when the wind blows them off whatever they're attached to. You can find thousands of skins in the grass or on the edge of sidewalks where the wind blows them into piles. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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1999 saw these guys make headway inland as far as 40+ miles from Lake Erie. They were either blown in or are also living in the river. In the case of Pemberville, OH, I find it very hard to believe that june bugs flew that far inland. They are apparently thriving in rivers. Pemberville has the Portage River running through the heart of it - and Pemberville has Street Lights! Minature May Flies! MAYFLY WATCH Yearly Table of Appearances In Port Clinton, Ohio, USA
Latest News Whoops... Magazine Article More Info... As I come up with more information on our friendly little flyers, I'll post it here. Comments? Information? Let me know.
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| Last page update - 1.30.2008 Copyright © 1998-2008 John R. Lucas All Rights Reserved. |
