Mayfly
Male, Profile
Mayfly
Male, Upper Eyes
| Mayfly Male, Profile | | Mayfly Male, Upper Eyes | | ||
 | Class: | Animals (Animalia) - Jointed Legs (Arthropoda) - Insects (Insecta) | |||
| Order: | Mayflies (Ephemeroptera) | ||||
| Family: | Mayfly (Baetidae) iNaturalist Observation | ||||
| Species: | Mayfly (Centroptilum elongatum) | ||||
| This Photo: | 🔍Male, Iso🔎 | ||||
Thank you Asaph (Asaph01) for confirming the id of this species for us General Species Information: Found in the Adelaide Hills and possibly elsewhere 1st Live Photo on-line: This male was ~5mm long (head & body). The tail cerci are just under 9mm. The specimen we found keyed out to Centroptilum, and C. elongatum is the only one in this genus found in SA. Notice the weird overhead eyes of the male; used for searching for a female (thank you to Ian Gibbins for confirming this assumption When we mentioned we couldn't think of another invert' with a 2nd pair of compound eyes, Ian also told us that they are not strictly a 2nd pair of eyes; but a genetic situation where the normal eyes split during development. This is a similar trick to the way mantids, eg, have striped eyes; and other insects have different zones in their eyes for varying purposes. Pretty fascinating stuff | |||||
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