HWN Suggests

Black fly – The Bug. The Legend

Nobody’s on the fence about black flies. Black flies are also called turkey gnats and buffalo gnats, and people who live in black fly country have a whole bunch of other names for them that can’t be repeated here... If you don’t have cool/cold rivers and streams, you don’t have black flies, and if you do have black flies, it’s a compliment to the quality of those running waters. Black fly larvae like lots of oxygen and are not tolerant of warmer waters or pollution...

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 Black Fly - Biology

Adult black flies (Diptera: Simuliidae) are a severe worldwide pest of humans and animals. Female adults, commonly known as gnats or buffalo gnats, swarm around the head and body of selected hosts in order to obtain blood required for egg production. Through blood feeding, black flies can be important vectors of diseases. They are responsible for transmitting onchocerciasis (river blindness) to millions of people in tropical areas of the world. Black flies can vector other serious diseases such as bovine onchocerciasis, mansonellosis, and leucocytozoonosis in wild and domestic animals.

Articles of Interest

The black fly has long been reviled in the Adirondacks. But is it time to declare a truce?

When we bought our Adirondack property in 2014, the first person we heard from was not the welcome wagon, not the assessor, not any favor-currying politician, it was from the black fly combatants who somehow found us in our Mid-Atlantic home and wrote seeking permission to apply Bt in the flowing waters of our soon-to-be new home.

Are Black Flies a Public Health Risk?

Black flies can be annoying biting pests, but none are known to transmit disease agents to humans in the U. S. However, they transmit one parasitic nematode worm that infects humans in other regions of the world. Onchocerca volvulus causes a significant human disease known as onchocerciasis or "river blindness" in equatorial Africa and mountainous regions of northern South America and Central America.

Black Flies ("Buffalo Gnats")

Like horse and deer flies, black flies bite using their mouthparts like scissors to cut into skin and lap up the blood. This results in painful bites that can produce bleeding, itching, inflammation and swelling, as well as allergic reactions that can be life-threatening. The flies may enter noses, ears and mouths, causing further discomfort. Domestic animals, especially poultry and exotic birds, can be killed by black fly attacks. While black flies are not known to transmit disease to humans in the United States, human deaths (presumably from allergic reactions) have been reported.

Buffalo gnats are making pests of themselves

*Suggested “home remedy” repellents, such as vanilla extract, have not been scientifically proven effective. DEET-containing repellents that deter mosquitoes are much less effective at repelling black flies and have even been reported to attract the flies.

Gnats, be gone!

Tiny little flies buzzing around my houseplants; it’s not the welcome home committee I’d wanted. Fungus gnats, or compost flies, are small, dark, short-lived gnats that love houseplants. The adults are annoying but harmless; the larvae, however, feed off the roots of houseplants.

The Black Fly Is Here for Your Blood—and Dignity

Many people consider the gnats to be more maddening than mosquitoes because their bites can be more painful. Rather than puncture the skin of victims, the fly slices open a wound with its mouth and laps up the blood. An itchy welt can last for days.

The Gnats Are Back

Black flies, also called buffalo gnats, are a biting fly that tend to swarm around your head and face. They will also attack livestock and are especially hard on chickens. The flies bite, feed on blood, and secrete an anticoagulant that can cause itching and swelling in some individuals.

Resources

Dang Gnats Comics

Hi, I'm Walt Jaschek, and this is the Facebook home of Dang Gnats!, a little (literally) comic strip that's flitted all over the internet for years -- now collected here!

You Don't Bother Me, Black Fly, Say Fans Of 'Jaws on Wings'

They have been called "winged assassins," "kamikaze wretches" and "jaws on wings." Their bites can cause bloody welts, violent allergies, and fever with swollen lymph nodes, nausea and vomiting. But in this Vermont village of about 400, black flies are a cause for celebration... Naturalists suspect the black-fly problem is growing because the water is getting cleaner. Peter Adler, an entomologist at Clemson University in South Carolina, says one of the first signs that the insects' population was expanding came in 1979, when a major black-fly outbreak in Pennsylvania followed cleanups mandated by the federal Clean Water Act.