Lorain and other communities along Lake Erie woke up yesterday morning to a profusion of mayflies, those harmless, one-inch-long, spindly shaped bugs that appear every year about this time.
Although many people refer to these insects as Canadian soldiers, as well as other unprintable names, Aimee Potonic, a naturalist with the Lorain County Metro Parks, said it was not an academically accurate moniker.
"They are indeed mayflies," Potonic said. "Canadian soldiers is not the scientific term."
But no matter what you call them, you can't escape them. Store owners could be seen hosing down the walls and windows of their businesses and their sidewalks yesterday. Residents whisked the insects away with brooms.
In one case, a woman was observed using an ice scraper to clear the mayflies off the windows of her car.
"It was terrible," said Sandy Brummer, of Brummer's Chocolates, 672 Main St., Vermilion.
"On the corner of routes 60 and 6, there was a solid black pile of them. We didn't know they were coming. We left the store lights on. In the morning, our window was solid black," Brummer said.
"They can be sensitive to chemicals and pollution in the water and an indicator of the health of the waterways," Potonic said of the insects.
"People need to know mayflies are completely harmless," said Joe Keiper, staff entomologist at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.
"Mayflies are a nuisance. No one likes to pick them off their clothes or shovel them up. But they transmit no diseases. In fact, they don't even bite," Keiper said.
Mayflies are an important part of the food chain, Keiper said, particularly for fish, such as bass, catfish and walleye.
"Certainly, every time they emerge, there seem to be more," Potonic said of the mayflies.
"The mayflies are short-lived. When they group together, we see these enormous numbers. But they're getting together to exchange genetic information," Potonic said. Or in less scientific terms -- mate.
"They are not built for eating things," Potonic said. "Their main function is to mate and lay eggs and that's it."
"The young are aquatic larvae and stay in the water until they mature, about a year," Potonic said.
"They mate in swarms and are attracted to lights at night, such as halogen or mercury vapor lights," Keiper said.
"When they're not in their mating swarm, they land on horizontal surfaces, like walls. Imagine a plane coming in for a landing. A wall is a convenience for them," Keiper said.
"This huge, massive onslaught is a very short-lived peak. We'll get a couple different generations of them. There will be other waves during the summer. But it's hard to predict if some will be more intense than others," Keiper said.
"The great irony is that the zebra mussel cleans the lake water so the pollution-sensitive mayflies can begin to increase their numbers. But, of course, the zebra mussel wreaks havoc on the lake" by out-competing native species for food and damaging harbors, boats and power plants, Keiper said.
Although they are harmless to humans, Potonic said mayflies can indeed be hazardous.
"They can be dangerous in high numbers," Potonic said. "They can pile up and make roadways slippery at times."
Tammy Jones, an employee of Health Source, 4365 Liberty Ave., Vermilion, said she could tell when people were arriving for business.
"When the patients got here and pulled into the parking lot, you could hear the mayflies popping," said Jones, saying it sounded like Bubble Wrap being popped.
Jones said business owners were cleaning off their walls and windows with hoses and, in one case, a leaf blower.
"I swept them off the front of the house with a broom," said Gene Taliano, a Lorain resident. "One good thing, it doesn't take much to kill them."
"I barely had any mayflies today," said Foti Kyrkos, owner, Stratos on the Lake, 2500 W. Erie Ave., Lorain.
"Last year, before we opened up, we had some. But I did notice a lot of them today at Fifth Third Bank in downtown Lorain. There was a ton of them on the wall," Kyrkos said.
Brummer suggested one possible use for the insects.
"One of these years, we're thinking of doing chocolate-covered mayflies," Brummer said.