One of the most common complaints you hear over the summer is the abundance of “bugs”. Bugs is a collective term for a variety of creatures – mostly small ones – that crawl, crawl, swim, or fly. Most are insects, although spiders technically aren’t, and some of the differences between and between them are more important to entomologists – the people who study such creatures – than to the average person. Most of these creatures live their lives completely off our radar. But some are flashy and not always in a way that people will appreciate.
In the last week in the family hut the mayflies of the lake appeared for the first time. These are aquatic insects that my wife’s family – since I’ve known them – have given the unscientific name “fish fly”.
They live underwater for most of their life as flat, squirming beings called nymphs. But every year in June these underwater nymphs swim to the surface at the right time, the skin on the back breaks open and a delicate insect with transparent wings appears. Because the wings dry in the air before they can fly, they resemble tiny one and a half inches long sailboats riding on the surface of the lake. This is a time – both when the nymph swims to the surface and while its wings are drying before it can fly – when they are prone to eating fish.
I have fished for panfish and perch in such mayflies, typically at dusk on a calm, warm night when the lake surface looked like it was raining, dimpled like the fish emerging on or near the surface , and drank the helpless and unhappy mayflies before their wings were dry enough to get in the air and fly ashore.
On land, these mayflies collect by dozens or hundreds on boathouse and cabin walls, docks and boat lifts, on trees and in the grass. My wife remembers how, as teenagers, she and her brothers didn’t like walking barefoot and having those big ephemera crunch under their feet with every step. Disturbed and blown into the air, they can also settle down and cling to legs, arms, clothing, and any suitable part of the human anatomy. One positive thing about their behavior is that they don’t bite! During the several days of this annual surfacing, my wife says, she and her brothers spent much more time indoors playing games and generally in their parents’ hairs.
After a day or two on one of these natural or artificial surfaces, the graceful mayflies become “changelings” again. For the second time, the wafer-thin skin on her back splits, and this split creates a sexually mature copy of the slender, long-tailed sailboat fly. When the right moment comes, typically on a quiet evening, males and females soar into the air, mingle in clouds over the water, mate, egg sacs are laid on the water, and the “parents” die and fall to the surface . The life cycle of these insects is complete. Humans may not be big fans, but the fish in the waters they are found in certainly are.
Mayflies come in all sizes, from those little more than a quarter of an inch from trunk to stern to the giant Hexagenia limbata found in the slow, muddy sections of some trout streams, a mayfly that roughly is five centimeters long, give or take.
There are certainly other “bugs” that could be classified under the mixed blessing category. The most obvious one, described with a wink as our second state bird, is the mosquito. The mosquito has little of the novelty or charisma of the lake and the river-dwelling mayflies. It could be said that another phrase – “familiarity creates contempt” – could be used here aptly.
There are several types of mosquitos, but most of us don’t make subtle distinctions by tapping the spot on our anatomy where we feel the needle-like sting of the insect or reaching for the spray can from Deep Woods Off to hold it in place . There is definitely gender bias in the mosquito world. Only the females bury their needle-sharp proboscis in our skin to take a blood sample – for proteins that are necessary for oviposition – while the males rely heavily on plant fluids for food supplements.
It is doubtful that many people would shed a tear if the last mosquito in the world died from the blow of a well-aimed palm. But there are living things in nature that benefit from eating what sometimes looks like an endless supply of mosquitos. Very small fish, such as immature blue gills or perch, can eat tiny mosquito larvae in their underwater stage. Turtles too. Swallows, purple martins and bats take them on the wing. Dragonfly larvae will eat mosquito larvae when both are in the underwater stage, and adult dragonflies will hunt adult mosquitoes in flight.
In addition to the obvious disruptive factor, mosquitoes can also be pathogens – albeit comparatively rarely – from the West Nile virus to yellow fever to malaria and many others. So it’s no wonder mosquito repellants have long been big business, from early citronella oil formulas to the modern brew we know as DEET.
There are other “beetles” that can make the summer less than pleasant, from deer flies to black flies, wooden ticks to deer ticks, wasps to yellow vests; not to mention those who attack not us but our flowers, vegetables and fruits. But whether we like it or not, every creature – even the “bugs” – has a purpose, even if it isn’t our particular purpose.
