Tuesday 20 May 2014

To Fear or Not to Fear?

This is the question....

"What is this creature? and is it as vicious as it looks??"

Here it is in silhouette..

And a different specimen - not quite so evil looking....

but then again, looks can be deceiving!

4 comments:

Diane said...

The top two look like mayflies to me but I am not sure what the bottom one is. I will be back to see what Susan comes up with :-) Interesting.
have a good week Diane

Tim said...

The last one is a female scorpion fly.

Tim said...

And Diane is right about it being a mayfly...
but it is inbetween hatching and its final dance...
to a fisherman, trying to imitate this look, it is a "dun"...
it will moult once more...
and become a "spinner"...
and those attractive, but opaque wings will become transparent...
the body more glossy...
and it dances until it dies.
It doesn't feed as an adult...
it has no mouth...
it mates and lays eggs in one crazy, dance-filled day!!

[Going on the dark mark at the tail and the stripe on the forewing it is Ephemera sp. - possibly the most well known...
E. danica]...
there are around 180 to 190 species in Europe...
the trick is to tie a "spinner" that matches the real thing that is bouncing in the air above the water....
the "dun" you lay gently onto the surface as if the "mayfly" has made a bad take off and crashed gently back as fish food.

Colin and Elizabeth said...

Thanks Tim for a perfect description and info... Being an ex fly fisherman I should have recognised it. C