MAYFLY

Or should that be "AprilFly"?

I'm at work at the moment, in a lull regarding phonecalls. Just took a well-earned break (to the lav) and saw a big adult Mayfly sitting on the 4th floor EA building window.

Easy to recognise, these flies are large, hold their veined-wings upwards, and have a long, delicate 3-pronged tail.

Another nice hatch for FlyFishers, they only breed in well oxygenated, clean streams and rivers (another thumbs up for this part of the river Thames), and can be used as pollution indicator species by their absence.

The Mayfly is our only winged insect that moults its wings. It has a winged sub-imago stage which lasts for a few hours after its nymph stage, before it moults these wings and becomes an adult.

The Mayfly only exists in its adult form for a few hours normally, but can live for a few days. They often hatch in great swarms which 'dance' on the rivers, and have been dense enough to interfere with drivers' vision (if the swarm drifts over local roads), and cause road accidents...