I went on a walk earlier (without bugspray or a hat), and as soon as I entered the woods, bugs started swarming over my head, and didn’t stop until I left the woods. I was able to catch one and look at it carefully, but it escaped before I could take it home and take a picture. So, the information I remember about it is all conditional on my memory being correct.
*It had 6 legs (hey, that narrows it down to 900,000 species!)
*It lived in upstate New York
*Head to abdomen, it was just under half an inch long
*It had a tough abdomin, like a beetle
*The throax and abdomin was covered in verticle stripes of black and red. Also, the eyes had red coloring similar to the back markings
*It had two thin, veiny, but relatively tough wings (I was able to carry it to my car by one wing, and it didn’t seem hurt after that)
*It had what looked like two hairy proboscises
*It seemed to swarm together with fellow bugs of the same species
*It was very interested in my hair and neck, but only my hair and neck. I think one bit my neck, but didn’t break the skin, or at least didn’t have anything alergic in its saliva, because I didn’t form a bump on my neck
*Aside from being extremely annoying, it seemed to be rather benign. It kept trying to land in my hair, but aside from the one bite, didn’t seem to want to suck my blood or anything like that
Anyway, I left it alive for the drive home, and it escaped. Can anyone guess which insect was bugging me from the written descriptions of what I can remember?
Probably some form of gnat, but could answerers be a bit more specific?
Posted in Package Bees
Tagged bugging, bugs, bugspray, hat, head, home, information, insect, kind, memory, Picture, walk
