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Mayflies are an order (Ephemeroptera) of over 3,000 species of flying insects, related
to dragonflies and damselflies. They are relatively primitive, with ancestral traits that were
probably present in the first flying insects, such as long tails, and wings that do not fold flat over
the abdomen. Their immature stages (nymphs) live in fresh water. Unique among insect orders,
they have a fully winged adult stage that moults into a sexually mature adult. Often, all the
mayflies in a population mature at the same time, emerging in the spring, summer or autumn in
enormous numbers; some hatchings attract tourists. Mayflies are a favourite food of many fish,
and fishing flies are often modelled to resemble them. The brief lives of mayfly adultsless
than five minutes for the female Dolania americana, after the final moulthave been noted by
naturalists and encyclopaedists since Aristotle and Pliny the Elder. The English poet George
Crabbe compared a daily newspaper's lifespan to that of a mayfly in the satirical poem "The
Newspaper" (1785). (Full article...)

Did you know...

Brandon Laird

In baseball, the Hokk

the Hiroshima Toyo Carp
Laird pictured).

Yazidi human rights

Bashar win the Sakharo

More than 60 people

centre in Quetta, Pakistan

Recently featured:
At least 70 people ar
James Rowland (RAAF officer)
derailment in Cameroon

Drowned God Ongoing:

Jack Parsons (rocket engineer)
Battle of Mosul

Archive Recent deaths:

Ren Chamussy

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Susan Lindquist
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Pete Burns

On this day...

November 2: All Souls' Day

Mexico

Taiwan whistling thrush

... that Robert Swinhoe called the Taiwan whistling thrush(pictured) the "Formosan
Cavern-bird"?

... that the Mapenduma hostage crisis lasted for more than four months?

... that the 1987 Czechoslovak film Princess Jasnenka and the Flying Shoemaker is
based on a fairy tale by Communist writer Jan Drda?

... that the head of hajduk commander Bajo Pivljanin was sent to the Ottoman sultan
as a war trophy?

Theo van Gogh

... that in 2013, the production of Oxford Blue cheese created around 50,000 litres
(13,000 US gal.) of waste whey per month, which was processed using an anaerobic
digester?

619 Emperor Gaoz

the Western Turkic Khag
earliest events in the Tan

... that the bioarchaeologist Charlotte Roberts once worked as a nurse on a burns
unit?

... that Yeshiva Ohr Elchonon of Jerusalem was the fourth yeshiva established on
three continents by Rabbi Simcha Wasserman?

1795 French Revol

that was ratified during th
subsequent Thermidorian
the National Convention

1936 The BBC Tel

regular, public all-electro

1960 In the trial R

Books was acquitted of o
Chatterley's Lover by D.

... that Juanita's Galley was noted for a "fabulous" breakfast, the proprietor's
"unpredictable disposition", and a 40-person brawl featuring car jacks, pipes, steel bars, a
fishbowl, and an ax?

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2004 Dutch film di

film Submission was crit
assassinated by Mohamm
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The Robinson projection is a map projection of a world map which shows the entire world at once. It was devised by Arthu
appeal from the Rand McNally company for a good compromise to the problem of readily showing the whole globe as a
projection since that time, and the National Geographic Society used the Robinson from 1988
Map: Strebe, using Geocart

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