|
|
 5 periodical mayflies DHJanzen100396.jpg high resolution
|
|
| The Michigan insect on the right is an adult mayfly - Ephemeroptera (on the left is a cast skin of the previous stage). As such it is simply an ancient insect, whose nymph lives in the beds of streams and rivers, filter-feeding on the passing microbes and detritus. But, after spending a year to years as a nymph, it emerges from the stream, moults, mates, and lays its eggs all in the same night. Again, many insects have such long larval stages and such short/ephemeral adult stages. However, just as there are periodical semelparous predator satiating cicadas (as well as more ordinary long-lived asynchronously breeding cicadas), there are/were periodical semelparous predator satiating mayflies, but even more dramatically. With a one-day highly edible adult phase, synchrony can be truly impressive. See the following image DHJanzen100397.jpg below. | ||
back to lecture slides
or skip to: