# Mayfly habits



## trout bum (Oct 5, 2010)

How far will a mayfly travel after hatching? I notice a lot of mayflys in strange places not near any water sources that would support them(not that I know of anyway). From my basic understanding of entomology a mayfly nymph "hatches" into a dun, molts into a spinner, reaches sexual maturity, mates, lays eggs and dies. All in the span of a couple of days. How do they have time to end up in the parking lot of Smiths food king?

T.B


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## Treehugnhuntr (Sep 7, 2007)

Mayflies will inhabit an array of waterways, not just mountain streams, lakes etc. I have a huge callibeatis and PMD hatches that swarm my house this time of year. Best I can come up with is that they hatch at the golf course and ditches/streams that have a consistent flow.

As far as travel, I'd guess that wind has a lot to do with variances in distance, but that without wind, they'd travel up and down the same body of water (Within reason) and stay fairly close (Mile?) of where they hatched. Obviously their ultimate goal is to lay eggs, so going to far from their known origins seems counter productive. I speculate that they probably use the local smiths as a place to shed their exo and molt into a spinner safely, then return to their place(s) of origin. Then again, maybe it's all random.

Uhh, yeah, I have the same question. :mrgreen:


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## martymcfly73 (Sep 17, 2007)

They travel no farther than 2.48 miles. Honest fact


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## doody (Apr 2, 2009)

Another interesting fact, 76.48% of statistics are made up on the spot.


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