Adult-stage brine flies are most plentiful during mid-summer, but all life stages are visible throughout the year. Brine flies live most of their lives underwater. Their life cycle begins in the summer, when the female flies lay their eggs on the water surface. After the eggs hatch, the larvae graze near the lake bottom.
They eat mostly cyanobacteria, but their diet also includes other types of bacteria, bottom-dwelling algae, diatoms, and detritus. They prefer to live in muddy areas or on bioherms rather than in sandy areas. Brine fly larvae spend their winters on the lake bottom.
When the temperatures drop in the late fall, the larvae become inactive and remain that way until temperatures rise in the spring. With no outlet, large amounts of salts have been deposited in the lake, making it almost three times as salty as the oceans and giving it a 10 pH balance.
Why is Mono Lake water so salty? Freshwater streams and underwater springs have brought trace amounts of minerals into Mono over the eons. Because the lake has no outlet, it is naturally saline. Mono Lake Basin was formed by the same geologic processes that shaped the Nevada and Eastern Sierra landscape over the past several million years.
With no outflow, salts accumulate in the lake as water evaporates, making the water body hypersaline more salty than the ocean and creating a very unique ecosystem. The delicate white tufa towers along the shore of Mono Lake are calcareous calcium carbonate deposits formed where fresh-water springs percolate through lake-bottom sediments and saline lake water.
Calcium in the fresh water combines with carbonate in the saline lake water. Measurements taken in early April put Mono Lake at 6, As Mono Lake is far saltier than the ocean average salt content of Super series of action shots of this behavior. They are totally engulfed in the flies-its awesome! I have seen this at Mono Lake, although when I was there in June, it was too early in the season for that many flies.
Previous Next. Mia Click here to view more of my California Gull photos plus facts and information about this species. Related posts you might enjoy viewing:. Julie Brown August 31, at pm.
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email. These were brine flies, Ephydra hians, also called shore flies, alkali flies, Mono Lake flies and several other names. Brine flies reach extraordinary densities along the shores of Mono Lake in California and the Great Salt Lake in Utah, but they also occur in many lesser-known salt or alkaline lakes.
They are adapted to saline and alkaline lakes, for they have several mechanisms to live under water in lakes with high concentrations of various salts. For example, larvae have a lime gland to remove carbonate and bicarbonate ions from the blood and excrete them. They also have an unusual pumping mechanism that moves sulfate from the gut to the blood to the colon and then out. Larvae also have strong prolegs that allow them to anchor to hard surfaces under water and to hold the pupae under water, where predation is rare.
Adult brine flies can walk under water, but they are highly buoyant and cannot breathe under water. So, to get to the bottom of the lake they need to climb down into the water, clinging to the substrate with their feet. As they go below the surface a bubble is formed around them, perhaps formed and stabilized by the hairs on their body.
The bubble allows them to breathe for about 15 minutes while they forage for food or lay eggs. When oxygen in their air bubble gets low, they release their grip on the substrate and pop to the surface like a cork, landing on their feet, perfectly dry.
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