![]() It is so charged with calcium that its bottom of white marl gives a special colour to the water – "a wonderful, pale pellucid green" as described by Robert Lloyd Praeger a century ago, but tending now to murky shades of jade as summer wears on. It is the largest and best of the marl lakes left on Ireland’s limestone after the Ice Age – perhaps, indeed, the best of its kind left in Europe. ![]() Six are in great danger of extinction.Īn especially disturbing case of decline is found at Lough Carra, in Co Mayo, a ragged- edged, islanded lake to the north of Lough Mask and Lough Corrib. They are vulnerable to pollution a recent “red list” of their welfare assessed the threat to all 33 Irish mayfly species. Their larvae, or nymphs, live on the bottom for up to two years, growing and moulting a score of times before surfacing as bright-winged flies and taking to the air. In today’s watchful world of ecology, mayflies are also key signals of the health – or sickness – of their waters. ![]() That, at least, was long the picture on the great trout lakes of the west. Their sudden emergence from the water and busy, nuptial swarmings still signal the launch of anglers eager to catch trout with imitation mayflies of their own, or “dapping” with real insects. The mayflies that dance above the lakes of late spring are of the insect order called Ephemeroptera: they hatch, fly, mate, lay eggs on the water and die – ephemeral lives, indeed.
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