The other morning I watched as this mayfly landed on my kitchen window. I was washing bottles so I had plenty of time to take a look at it. I wondered how long it was going to stay there. Had he flown in from some long journey and now needed to take a long rest?? Who knows. I do know that he stayed there all day. Then, to my surprise I saw that he had shed his exoskeleton and was outside of his body! I had never seen anything like this before so of course I thought I would take this picture which, by the way, is through my window and the screen obviously, but you can still totally see what I saw. I then looked up mayflies online to learn a little bit more about this whole molting process. I found out that mayflies continue to shed there exoskeletons while they grow. So once they outgrow their body they just shed it off and have a new one. Why can't humans do that??? Anyway, once the mayfly reaches its adult stage it will only live about 2 days or so. Jason says that their mouths are so small they can't eat and they fly around until they starve. I have not confirmed that information but he is pretty smart. :) Anyway, I thought it was very interesting and was amazed to watch this molting process take place right before my eyes. By the way, the old exoskeleton is still on my window while the mayfly is out flying around in the world!
1 comment:
holy smokes! that is so cool...thanks for 'capturing' it. nature rocks. well, not all nature. black widows definitely don't rock.
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