Put your hands together for reader Dom, who sacrificed his very blood so that readers could learn some natural history. His words:
One Saturday a few weeks ago in Norfolk I gave blood so that WEIT readers could see a cleg [JAC: “cleg” is British argot for “horsefly”]! Haematopota pluvialis – I love green eyes – isn’t she beautiful (yes, a female) ?!
These bloodsuckers are expert at landing on you so you cannot feel them. You are most likely to get them near livestock, but this one found me while I was photographing ringlet butterflies…
When I asked Dom whether the bite itself was painless, he answered, “Yes – painless. They are very good at doing it so you do not notice – you get a bump & itching afterwards – in my case it took 24 hours to appear. It is not easy using the camera with one hand!”
Here’s a photo of horsefly eyes that Dom found on WildGuideUK. The fly above is in the left column, second row:
Finally, on a less sanguinary note, reader Anne-Marie sent a picture of a male American Goldfinch (Spinus tristis) feeding on the seeds of a purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea).
I’ve always found horsefly bites to be very painful.
In me they don’t result in much itching afterwards but I certainly notice them at the biting stage!
Me too; but my experience is with US horseflies.
Same here but even some biting flies other than horseflies. Much worse are the Chiggers (Trombiculidae). You do not know they got you until it is too late and the itching is insane. You don’t get to take pictures unless you have an extreme camera.
Perhaps you are all delicate & sensitive while I am an unfeeling oaf! 😉
The horseflies in Germany (tabanus sudeticus) are also very painful the moment they bite. You feel a strong sting that make you wince, and moments later you want to hit them or shake them off (they often land on your back when you come out of a pond after swimming).
Ouch me too! Here they will take a bit of flesh off with them. Horse flies are the worst – even worse than deer flies!
Yes, very painful! And as flies like my body odor, I am always the first one to ‘discover’ them. :-/
I didn’t even know that these flies technically attempt to suck blood. [ https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bromsar ] In my experience they will remove some meat, and I thought that was their feed.
I’ve always found that clegs can sneak up and bite you completely painlessly – until a few minutes later, and then pain and itching for a couple of days! There must be a difference between them and US & German horseflies.
No-See-Ums…’nough said.
In my experience with British clegs, you don’t feel them land but you generally do feel them bite. Compared to the hypodermic syringe of a mosquito they have a rather messy bite which often produces quite an itchy, painful reaction. I admire Dom’s self-control in resisting the urge to swat the fly as it completes its blood meal!
Out in the south suburbs of Chicago they are bigger than cicadas, I live a mile from a forest preserve. They’re highly visible and super aggressive. I’ve had them try to attack me through a car windshield. One tried four times, in the same spot. Sounded like a rock hitting the windshield.
I come across these giant ones too. I suspect they are after the car, since it gives off heat and CO2 they think it is a big mammal.
Yikes!
There are some pretty vicious ones that live in southern Missouri, at a beautiful place known as the Johnson Shut-ins. Oddly, though, they are absent at the place in the river and rocks where all the tourists are, but float down just past that for a little peace and quiet and BAM! you get nailed by the hordes! They are not small and are in no way painless! I’ve never experienced the ones you speak of, at least in the forest preserves in and around Yorkville, Il which I visited when I lived there for a summer but I certainly recognize the tactics.
AAAAH! The only thing worse than that horsefly is the black / yellow triangular shaped one. If take a mosquito bite over them any time.
Goldfinches are always easily spooked – can’t get a good pic. Also they are up on high flowers. Haven’t gotten a good camera setup yet.
Nice one of the goldfinch Anne-Marie.
Our local ones are on our (profuse) Echinacea as well.
Thanks!
Way to take one for the team, Dom! [clap clap clap]. I am glad it did not hurt.
Never been ‘et by a horsefly (that I know about). But damn I hate stable flies. Their bite does hurt.
On one visit to Norway I was bitten a couple of times in Lofoten – again never noticed. If you feel it they fail as they will be brushed off.
Painless my ass!
I was shit scared of clegs as a child. Approaching a mild phobia I would say.
Seeing this one now does me no good at all.
I hate taking sentient life but I’ll instinctively batter the hell out of these if they come anywhere near me.
According to Wikipedia, Horse-flies are found worldwide, except for the polar regions, but they are absent from some islands such as Greenland, Iceland, and Hawaii. so we know where we need to move!!
Me too!
I’ve said this before, but I don’t care to be shown photographs of a tabanid feeding without evidence that it was subsequently killed.
You heartless fellow Ken! 🙁
Lovely ! the goldfinch and coneflower: Iowa is a northern territory that is native for both species, the Eastern (or American) Goldfinch its state bird. And of the finches’ diet of almost entirely seeds, if one cannot afford their favored and rather pricey thistle ones, then goldfinches are quite attracted to coneflowers and other aster species.
Nice pix, Ms Cournoyer: sunshine – yellow along with (at its least, teas’ placebo – ) immunity boosting petal – ly echinacea parts !
Blue
Thank you !
Thanks!
Not that I fancy flies, and especially not “broms”, or “hästbroms” (horse “broms”) as we called the big ones when I grew up.
But this was interesting: apparently “klegg” is the norwegian name, which is used in parts of Sweden too. [ https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bromsar ]
[i]Haematopota pluvialis[/i] is regnbroms (rain “broms”), described by Linné. [ https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regnbroms ]
“Clegg” was the name applied by my Scottish uncle to the deerflies he encountered when we took him up to Muskoka for a holiday on the lake. Scots English has a lot of archaisms in it, and some of them sound like they are cognates with words in the Scandinavian tongues – “kirk” for “church”, for instance.
I wonder if the name was brought over to the British Isles by Scandinavian settlers during the period of Viking colonization,and got absorbed into English (or Anglo-Saxon, I guess, at that time).
Yes, it is indeed from Old Norse, kleggi.
Bloody clegs. Just about the only insect that has had the temerity to bit me and actually raise a welt within minutes.
They certainly don’t go unnoticed by me.
🙁
Love all these photos and the others posted earlier this week. Thanks a bunch!
Holy Shit…if ever JAC put up a contest for the best RWPs, this would have to make the cut.
The criteria is always good photos coupled by good scientific learning.