In art The
Dutch Golden Age author Augerius Clutius (
Outgert Cluyt) illustrated some mayflies in his 1634
De Hemerobio ("On the Mayfly"), the earliest book written on the group.
Maerten de Vos similarly illustrated a mayfly in his 1587 depiction of the fifth day of creation, amongst an assortment of fish and water birds. In 1495
Albrecht Dürer included a mayfly in his engraving
The Holy Family with the Mayfly. The critics
Larry Silver and
Pamela H. Smith argue that the image provides "an explicit link between heaven and earth ... to suggest a cosmic resonance between sacred and profane, celestial and terrestrial, macrocosm and microcosm."
In literature Literary reference to the mayfly is seen in
The Epic of Gilgamesh, one of the earliest surviving great works of literature. The briefness of Gilgamesh's life is compared to that of the adult mayfly. In
Tablet X, lines 312-15,
Utanapishtim says to
Gilgamesh, The
Ancient Greek biologist and philosopher
Aristotle wrote in his
History of Animals that The
Ancient Roman encyclopaedist
Pliny the Elder described the mayfly as the "hemerobius" in his
Natural History: The Roman lawyer
Cicero wrote philosophically of them in his
Tusculan Disputations: In his 1789 book
The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne,
Gilbert White described in the entry for "June 10th, 1771" how: The mayfly has come to symbolise the transitoriness and brevity of life. The English poet
George Crabbe, known to have been interested in insects, compared the brief life of a
newspaper with that of mayflies, both being known as "Ephemera", things that live for a day: The theme of brief life is echoed in the artist Douglas Florian's 1998 poem, "The Mayfly". The
American Poet Laureate Richard Wilbur's 2005 poem "Mayflies" includes the lines "I saw from unseen pools a mist of flies, In their quadrillions rise, And animate a ragged patch of glow, With sudden glittering". In
Szeged, Hungary, mayflies are celebrated in a monument near the Belvárosi bridge, the work of local sculptor Pal Farkas, depicting the courtship dance of mayflies. The American playwright
David Ives wrote a short comedic play,
Time Flies, in 2001, as to what two mayflies might discuss during their one day of existence.
In fly fishing from Charles and Richard Bowlker's
Art of Angling (1854) 2. "Blue Dun" mayfly. 3. "
March Brown" mayfly Mayflies are the primary source of models for artificial flies, hooks tied with coloured materials such as threads and feathers, used in
fly fishing. In 1983, Patrick McCafferty recorded that artificial flies had been based on 36 genera of North American mayfly, from a total of 63 western species and 103 eastern/central species. A large number of these species have common names among fly fishermen, who need to develop a substantial knowledge of mayfly "habitat, distribution, seasonality, morphology and behavior" in order to match precisely the look and movements of the insects that the local trout are expecting. Nymph or "wet fly" fishing was restored to popularity on the
chalk streams of England by
G. E. M. Skues with his 1910 book
Minor Tactics of the Chalk Stream. In the book, Skues discusses the use of duns to catch trout. The March brown is "probably the most famous of all British mayflies", having been copied by
anglers to catch trout for over 500 years. Some English
public houses beside trout streams such as the
River Test in
Hampshire are named "The Mayfly".
As a spectacle The hatch of the giant mayfly
Palingenia longicauda on the
Tisza and
Maros Rivers in Hungary and Serbia, known as "Tisza blooming", is a tourist attraction. The 2014 hatch of the large black-brown mayfly
Hexagenia bilineata on the
Mississippi River in the US was imaged on weather radar; the swarm flew up to 760 m (2,500 feet) above the ground near
La Crosse, Wisconsin, creating a radar signature that resembled a "significant rain storm", and the mass of dead insects covering roads, cars and buildings caused a "slimy mess". During the weekend of 13–14 June 2015, a large swarm of mayflies caused several vehicular accidents on the
Columbia–Wrightsville Bridge, carrying
Pennsylvania Route 462 across the
Susquehanna River between
Columbia and
Wrightsville, Pennsylvania. The bridge had to be closed to traffic twice during that period due to impaired visibility and obstructions posed by piles of dead insects.
As food Mayflies are consumed in several cultures and are estimated to contain the most raw protein content of any edible insect by dry weight. In
Malawi,
kungu, a paste of mayflies (
Caenis kungu) and mosquitoes is made into a cake for eating. Adult mayflies are collected and eaten in many parts of China and Japan. Near
Lake Victoria,
Povilla mayflies are collected, dried and preserved for use in food preparations.
As a name for ships and aircraft Mayfly emerging from her floating shed at
Vickers' yard at
Barrow-in-Furness on "Mayfly" was the crew's nickname for
His Majesty's Airship No. 1, an aerial scout airship built by
Vickers but wrecked by strong winds in 1911 before her trial flights. Two vessels of the
Royal Navy were named : a torpedo boat launched in January 1907, and a
Fly-class river gunboat constructed in sections at Yarrow in 1915. The
Seddon Mayfly, which was constructed in 1908, was an aircraft that was unsuccessful in early flight. The first aircraft designed by a woman,
Lillian Bland, was titled the
Bland Mayfly. Mayflies could find uses in the biomedical, pharmaceutical, and cosmetic industries. Their exoskeleton contains
chitin, which has applications in these industries. Mayfly larvae do not survive in polluted aquatic habitats and, thus, have been chosen as bioindicators, markers of water quality in
ecological assessments. In marketing,
Nike produced a line of running shoes in 2003 titled "Mayfly". The shoes were designed with a wing venation pattern like the mayfly and were also said to have a finite lifetime. The telecommunication company
Vodafone featured mayflies in a 2006 branding campaign, telling consumers to "make the most of now". == Notes ==