Green drake mayfly
The green drake mayfly is a big mayfly with see-through wings with dark veins and three long tails. It spends years as a baby under the water, but only a few days as a grown-up. Grown-ups have no working mouth, so they never eat.
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Fun facts
A grown-up lives four days at the most.
The babies live in the river for one or two years, sometimes even three.
A baby can grow to about 3 centimetres long.
The mother flies over the water and dips her tail into it to lay her eggs.
Swallows, trout, frogs and spiders love to eat mayflies.
Most asked questions about Green drake mayfly
?How long does a mayfly live?
As a grown-up only a few days, at most about four. But as a baby in the river it lives one to three years.
?Why is it called a mayfly?
Because most grown-ups appear in May and June.
?Does the green drake mayfly bite?
No. Grown-ups cannot eat or bite at all.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Ephemera danica
- Group
- Other insects
- Family
- Ephemeridae
- Classification
- Insecta > Ephemeroptera > Ephemeridae
- Lives on
- Europe
- Also known as
- Green drake
Where the facts come from
- Ephemera danica (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by Hectonichus. CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at hello@bugwiki.app and we will fix it.
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