Mayflies have a slender body, a freely rotating head, two pairs of wings, developed front wings and small rear wings. The abdomen is slender, with silky tail hair longer than the body. The life span of adults depends on the species, ranging from a few hours to eight to twenty-one days, usually two to three days. Therefore, the idiom "Mayfly" refers to the life of Mayfly from teenager to adult.

Mayflies are the favorite objects of China literati and poets. In The Book of Songs, Cao Feng once sang: "The feathers of the ephemera, the clothes are clear ... the wings of the ephemera, the clothes are collected", which connects the wings of the ephemera with women's dresses, like a light cloud curling up, like a tender willow brushing water. "Huainanzi" further said: "Eat without drinking, and melt into twenty-two; Cicada drinks without eating and sloughs after 30 days; Mayflies died in three days without eating or drinking. " . Li Shizhen's Compendium of Materia Medica in the Ming Dynasty added an inspiration: "Mayflies, water bugs, ... Mayflies", which captured the ecological characteristics of Mayflies in one sentence. Westerners discovered the early death of the ephemera long ago. Its entomological name is the ephemera, which was given by the Greek philosopher Aristotle, and it simply means "shortness".