Red Gall Midge
Hairy Body
Adelaide Hills
Biting Midge
Anterior
 
                      
Biting Midge (Ceratopogonidae sp)Class: Animals (Animalia) - Jointed Legs (Arthropoda) - Insects (Insecta)
Order: Flies (Diptera)
Family: Biting Midge (Ceratopogonidae)
Species: Biting Midge (Ceratopogonidae sp)
This Photo:     Dorsal, ~3mm
Other name: Sand Fly

General Species Information:
Found in the Adelaide Hills and possibly elsewhere
These tiny little flies are on ~3mm long and superficially (naked eye) look black.
Like mozzies, you usually can't feel them bite. But afterwards the area swells up. It is said that people who live in the same habitat build up an immunity to them, but tourists get badly affected.
I squashed one biting me once and it made it 10 times worse. Basically squeezing irritants into the body.
Unlike mozzies, that have a straw like proboscis (like moths), these have 2 sharp "jaws" they dig in and stand up vertical to the skin sucking blood.

Copyright © 2016-2024 Brett & Marie Smith. All Rights Reserved. Photographed 29-Oct-2016
This species is an Australian Native Species, not listed in the SA Murray Mallee Survey of 2010.