At my writing retreat last week, which was in upstate New York on the shores of beautiful Lake Champlain, a number of us observed a certain insect that seemed to be everywhere. Some of us were more enraptured than others to see these unusual looking winged creatures. They’re mayflies.
Mayflies belong to the order Ephemeroptera, which means “lasting a day.” They’re related to dragonflies and damselflies. The immature nymph phase of their life cycle lasts about a year, in fresh water, but the adult phase is terribly brief—generally a day.
They also tend to congregate in large numbers.
Mayfly carcasses have been known to pile up on bridges like a snowfall. In July, 2006, a huge cloud of mayflies that had hatched from the Mississippi River showed up on weather radar. A few hours later, bridges had to be closed while dead mayflies were removed with snowplows.
In October, 2007 a Major League baseball game between the New York Yankees and the Cleveland Indians was swarmed by clouds of mayflies in the 8th inning. Coughing and spitting out bugs, the Yankee pitcher, Joba Chamberlain, threw two wild pitches and walked a batter, which probably cost the Yankees the game.
