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Mayflies were chosen to be our logo – Why? Because they are insects. And beautiful. Elegant. Simple. With an intelligent life strategy. Fundamental in the food web. Here: Within insects they are a relatively small group (23 families, about 2500 described species) that subsists in rivers, lakes and other freshwater environments. They are born underwater and have development stages that last from a few months up to one or two years when their bodies – with lateral guills for breathing and two or three long tails - increase in size. But then comes a stage that produces winged mayflies, ready to emerge from water; these are the adults that only live a few hour or one/two days. Their single target is to find an opposite sex mayfly and reproduce. And that is usually not difficult to accomplish since in most populations thousands of adults emerge from water at the same time, covering all the nearby surfaces. Adult mayflies don’t even feed because their mouthparts are vestigial. Emerging en masse is a life strategy that guarantees the survival of the group because the predators feed on great number of individuals but many others are able to reproduce. Mayflies are ecological indicators of good water quality as they are pollution-sensitive animals and are in addition an important source of food for fish and other aquatic wildlife. |