JayDeee

Sorry I cant take a photo as they are too small but I am hoping someone can tell me what they are from the discription

They are about 4-5mm long,they fly but have really tiny wings, when they land they lie there wings back so they are long and skinny, about 1mm wide, they have 6 legs and 2 very very very fine feeler like things on the front. The tail end looks like it might have a sting and they kinda stick there tail up in the air.

This might sound like a stupid question but we have had rain for the past 2 days and there are litterally thousands of these things around, to the point when you sit in the garden within a minute your clothes change from the colour they are to black where so many have landed on you. I have got quite a few bites and am not sure whether it is these things or mossies that are biting/stingin me so I no whether to put spray on all day or just the evening.

So if any insect buffs are out there who knows what they are please could you let me know

Ta Kala

Ialibu

What colour? What a description! If they were dangerous you would most likely have been told a squillion times by now. I have spent lots of years in WA and if anything was remotely potentially dangerous, the natives loved telling us foreigners.

The other thing is, stick your arm out and let one land on it and see what it does. They are probably only looking for a mate :-)

Megalania

Ants?

Simone

They sound a bit small for flying ants....

How wierd.... I dunno..... (edit: I don't mean that's it's wierd that I don't know! They sound wierd!)


Can't you try and make a pic. Or try looking them up on google!


Hope they go away soon!!

JayDeee

Definately not ants much much smaller and they doint have the seperate sections like ants.

I would love to have the choice of 1 landing on my arm but it is more like 100 on each arm and my face and a good 500 on my clothes, they are annoying things and we have stayed indoors to keep away from them.

They are black, I have tried to take a photo and looked them up on the net but there are so many insects on the net it would take me 10 yrs to trawl through them all.

Still not sure if they are biting me, I do have bites but I'm pretty sure that if it were them biting me then I would have a lot more.

Ah never mind, just thought they might be something that others had seen before

spalen

Holy Moly - would you rather be bitten by it or Sh@gged by it ! !!
:scared:

Jimclevs

.......... LOL........ twice !!

Jim

tonyk38

You've given a pretty accurate description of a thrip, also known as a thunder bug. They're present in large numbers for a few weeks where I live in the UK, and then they mate and die, and suddenly there's none around; and yes they do bite!

Thrips belong to their own order of insects, so are not a type of fly, ant or anything else.

Hope that helps!

madsad

Right!-Who imported the scottish midge??!!

Donna.

moneypenny20

She didn't have them until you got over there. Did you empty a bag out whilst fiying over WA?

Tonyonthemove

Just while we have some insect experts on here I thought I'd ask about our weird bug. It's black with a few gold speckles, about an inch long, similar sort of shape to a hornet and has a long pointed nose. It gives off a very pungent ammonia like smell when you try and kill it and when I say try I mean it. These things are armour plated and take several hits with a shoe just to annoy them. Any ideas?

tonyk38

If it has wings under armoured 'outer' wings, it's probably a type of weevil (which are beetles). However, you said it looks a bit like a hornet which is confusing. Alderflies and some Scorpionflies can have long pointed noses, but I've never known them to be this big. Another possibility is that it is a type of 'bug'. These are a group of insects which include aphids, water boatmen and pond skaters. I once saw a 'bug' of this group in Dimbulah in Qld that was almost as long as my hand. It was built like a tank and had a long pointed face like you describe.

Does it have six legs? That would at least establish that it's an insect. Arachnids (spiders, scorpions, ticks, mites etc) have eight legs. Crustaceans usually have eight or more, though not always. Any description of wing types and number of pairs of wings is also important when helping to ID them.

I'm certainly no expert with regards to beasties,but I can more or less guarantee that I can identify any insect to at least the order it belongs to if a reasonably decent photo is supplied. I know they can be tricky to photograph, but any budding photographers with extension tubes or a macro lens on their camera might want to take up the challenge!

Regards.

Scossie

Stong?

I hope these stonging things don't move down to Perth from Geraldton!

I would hate to be stong by one of them!!!

fraser

JayDeee

Nah you wouldnt Stonging is actually more painfull than stinging