Today I'm going to teach you about Shadflys. You heared me right. They are disgusting, smelly little creatures that look like a plague of locusts have hit the town, and all you can hear it a slippery crunch while you walk on the street downtown. The streetlights are now blacked out because they have a coat of shadfly's on them. They smell like fish and look like an inbred dragonfly. They have no purpose. They have cannot bite, or eat. They live and die to be food for others. I fucking hate shadflys.
TAKEN FROM SHADFLY DOT COM:
A pregnant female will fly over the water and dip her abdomen in the water, releasing up to 8,000 eggs, which sink to the bottom. The eggs then hatch into nymphs or naiads, which form a u-shaped burrow in the sediment at the bottom of the water body. They then feed on algae and bacteria in the lake bottom. They can stay there for a few months to a few years.
When the water reaches the right temperature, the nymph emerges, swims to the surface and sheds it skin. Then, the skin and wings harden and the nymph is known as a sub-imago, which flies to the shore. It then molts again, and is considered an adult. The males and females congregate over the water and mate, after which the male dies. The female then releases her eggs in the water and the cycle starts over again.
They are the oldest insect alive, and are believed to date back from about 300 million years ago. They have undeveloped mouth parts and cannot feed once leaving the water. They are the only insects known to molt while in subadulthood. It is a macroinvertabrate.
Each year as summer temperatures reach their peak, shadfly nymphs emerge from the lake in droves. Attracted to land by the light of the moon, the "shads" natural mating patterns are somewhat altered as the foiled shads dance in circles around city streetlights. After a warm summers night, residents will wake up to vehicles that have become an overnight resting post for these fine-winged insects.
The unmistakable sound of crunching shadflies signifies the beginning of summer as the insects are too numerous to dodge while going about business on city sidewalks. A leisurely bicycle ride on a warm evening during shadfly season becomes an exercise in breathing with one's mouth closed to avoid an unwanted insect meal. Roadways become hazardous as crawling masses of these night-flyers congregate underneath the brightest street lights forming a slippery film between tire and asphalt.
The end of the 2-3 week shadfly emergence is found to be the most obnoxious. Insects which have been swept into heaps by city shopkeepers foul the city air as peak summer temperatures speed up the decomposition process. The lakes appeal is lost to prospective swimmers looking for relief from the heat as they are faced with the stench of shadfly corpses littering the shore.
The saving grace of this winged storm is the lack of biting or sucking mouthparts. Unlike the itch inspiring mosquito and black-fly, the shadfly is only a menace to man because of its emergence in astronomical numbers.
TAKEN FROM SHADFLY DOT COM:
A pregnant female will fly over the water and dip her abdomen in the water, releasing up to 8,000 eggs, which sink to the bottom. The eggs then hatch into nymphs or naiads, which form a u-shaped burrow in the sediment at the bottom of the water body. They then feed on algae and bacteria in the lake bottom. They can stay there for a few months to a few years.
When the water reaches the right temperature, the nymph emerges, swims to the surface and sheds it skin. Then, the skin and wings harden and the nymph is known as a sub-imago, which flies to the shore. It then molts again, and is considered an adult. The males and females congregate over the water and mate, after which the male dies. The female then releases her eggs in the water and the cycle starts over again.
They are the oldest insect alive, and are believed to date back from about 300 million years ago. They have undeveloped mouth parts and cannot feed once leaving the water. They are the only insects known to molt while in subadulthood. It is a macroinvertabrate.
Each year as summer temperatures reach their peak, shadfly nymphs emerge from the lake in droves. Attracted to land by the light of the moon, the "shads" natural mating patterns are somewhat altered as the foiled shads dance in circles around city streetlights. After a warm summers night, residents will wake up to vehicles that have become an overnight resting post for these fine-winged insects.
The unmistakable sound of crunching shadflies signifies the beginning of summer as the insects are too numerous to dodge while going about business on city sidewalks. A leisurely bicycle ride on a warm evening during shadfly season becomes an exercise in breathing with one's mouth closed to avoid an unwanted insect meal. Roadways become hazardous as crawling masses of these night-flyers congregate underneath the brightest street lights forming a slippery film between tire and asphalt.
The end of the 2-3 week shadfly emergence is found to be the most obnoxious. Insects which have been swept into heaps by city shopkeepers foul the city air as peak summer temperatures speed up the decomposition process. The lakes appeal is lost to prospective swimmers looking for relief from the heat as they are faced with the stench of shadfly corpses littering the shore.
The saving grace of this winged storm is the lack of biting or sucking mouthparts. Unlike the itch inspiring mosquito and black-fly, the shadfly is only a menace to man because of its emergence in astronomical numbers.
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Your babies are both soooo cute, especially Mishie. Isn't it funny how, with ferrets, the more evil they are the more loveable they become?