Noun

(en noun)

Any of various small two-winged flies, for example, from the family Chironomidae or non-biting midges, the family Chaoboridae or phantom midges, and the family Ceratopogonidae or biting midges, all belonging to the order Diptera.

* {{quote-magazine, date=2012-01

, author=Douglas Larson , title=Runaway Devils Lake , volume=100, issue=1, page=46 , magazine= citation , passage=Devils Lake is where I began my career as a limnologist in 1964, studying the lake’s neotenic salamanders and chironomids, or midge flies. […] The Devils Lake Basin is an endorheic, or closed, basin covering about 9,800 square kilometers in northeastern North Dakota.}}

Noun

(mayflies)

Any of the many fragile insects of the order Ephemeroptera, that develop in fresh water and live very briefly as winged adults.

* 2002 , John Gooderham, Edward Tsyrlin, The Waterbug Book , page 132,

Adult mayflies' have large compound eyes and most have two pairs of wings.' Mayfly nymphs are distinguished by their three tails (two cerci and a terminal filament) and the set of gills on each side of their abdomen.

* 2005 , Terry Hellekson, Fish Flies: The Encyclopedia of the Fly Tier's Art , page 213,

Mayflies are fragile, gossamer-winged insects that arise from bodies of water and often swarm in great numbers.

* 2010 , Barbara L. Peckarsky, J. David Allan, Angus R. McIntosh, Brad W. Taylor, Chapter 9: Understanding the Role of Predation in Open Systems'', Ian Billick, Mary V. Price (editors), ''The Ecology of Place , page 195,

Stoneflies have negligible consumptive (thin solid line) and behavioral effects (thin dashed line) on mayfly' abundance. Consumption by trout decreases the abundance of '''mayflies''' (solid line), but trout suppress ' mayfly emigration (drift) and thereby increase their abundance (thick dashed line).