Giant mayfly
The giant mayfly is a pale yellow insect with see-through wings and two long tails. It spends most of its life underwater as a baby, digging in the mud. Then it flies out for only a few days to find a mate.
How big is it?
How long is it?
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Fun facts
When thousands hatch at once, the swarm can be so big that it shows up on weather radar.
Around the Great Lakes people call them fish flies, because the piles of mayflies make the shore smell like rotten fish.
The baby lives in a U-shaped tunnel in the mud and waves its feathery gills to pull fresh water through.
It changes its skin up to thirty times while it grows.
After it flies out of the water it changes its skin one more time, which almost no other insect does.
Most asked questions about Giant mayfly
?How long does a giant mayfly live?
As a flying grown-up only a few days. As a baby underwater it can live up to two years.
?Do giant mayflies bite?
No. Grown-up mayflies cannot even eat, so they cannot bite you.
?Why are there so many mayflies at once?
They all hatch at about the same time, which helps them find a mate.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Hexagenia limbata
- Group
- Other insects
- Family
- Ephemeridae
- Classification
- Insecta > Ephemeroptera > Ephemeridae
- Lives on
- North America
- Also known as
- Golden mayfly, Big Michigan mayfly, Great leadwing drake, Fish fly
Where the facts come from
- Hexagenia limbata (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by Cody Hough. CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.
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