Quote:
What are no -see-ums?
teeny tiny little midges that can fit through most mosquito netting, and if you are like me, where they bite they leave huge, intensely itchy hot lumps (size of 1/2 an orange on me!) the huge part goes away in a few hrs, but an immensely itchy zit-like dot remains for about a week if you don't scratch it off and make a nasty mess of yourself. I have to put socks over my hands when I sleep or I will scratch them off, and still my arms bear scars of many no-see-um bites. I don't feel them as they bite, it is after they leave that the trouble begins. They are related to blackflies and sandflies. The beach varieties don't bother me, but whatever species lives around the Sacramento River and Whiskeytown up near Davenport are the worst! (My first job out of college was with the US Fish and Wildlife Service Migratory Bird Research Center .... I had to gather insect larvae from dead ducks when (Benthic, water column, and from the bird itself samples) when there were avain botulism and cholera outbreaks in the Central Valley, then I had to dissect them and ID them by their pharyngial skeletons ... my skin was awful that year, so bad I had to find a different line of work! I also was up near Davenport on the Sacramento and Whiskeytown River because of a train derailment (July 1990 I think) when a tanker of metam sodium spilled into the Sacramento River killing everything from Davenport to Lake Shasta! There we were planting salmon eggs in the rivers and checking viability. I worked the control river by Whiskeytown, and the Sacramento below Shasta Dam - the upper part was much too toxic.
If you are like my DH, they can bite, not itch, and not leave a mark. He does not even notice them. I'm envious. I would not have switched careers had those little buggers not bothered me so much!
What are no -see-ums?
teeny tiny little midges that can fit through most mosquito netting, and if you are like me, where they bite they leave huge, intensely itchy hot lumps (size of 1/2 an orange on me!) the huge part goes away in a few hrs, but an immensely itchy zit-like dot remains for about a week if you don't scratch it off and make a nasty mess of yourself. I have to put socks over my hands when I sleep or I will scratch them off, and still my arms bear scars of many no-see-um bites. I don't feel them as they bite, it is after they leave that the trouble begins. They are related to blackflies and sandflies. The beach varieties don't bother me, but whatever species lives around the Sacramento River and Whiskeytown up near Davenport are the worst! (My first job out of college was with the US Fish and Wildlife Service Migratory Bird Research Center .... I had to gather insect larvae from dead ducks when (Benthic, water column, and from the bird itself samples) when there were avain botulism and cholera outbreaks in the Central Valley, then I had to dissect them and ID them by their pharyngial skeletons ... my skin was awful that year, so bad I had to find a different line of work! I also was up near Davenport on the Sacramento and Whiskeytown River because of a train derailment (July 1990 I think) when a tanker of metam sodium spilled into the Sacramento River killing everything from Davenport to Lake Shasta! There we were planting salmon eggs in the rivers and checking viability. I worked the control river by Whiskeytown, and the Sacramento below Shasta Dam - the upper part was much too toxic.
If you are like my DH, they can bite, not itch, and not leave a mark. He does not even notice them. I'm envious. I would not have switched careers had those little buggers not bothered me so much!
