I went to the park with my baby girl and some gal pals the other day and came back with a whole bunch of little red bites all over my feet. These ‘bites’ had spread to my ankles the following day. Considering I had not been in the park for 24 hours and the bites had multiplied and certainly looked bite-ish as opposed to rash-ish, I was a tad distressed. I showed my husband my ailment in the hope of some sympathy and a little comfort. His version of sympathy went as follows: “you probably have that thing where those spiders lay their eggs under your skin and then hatch”. Hilarious. Luckily the little bites disappeared, slowly but surely, and just when I was getting over the idea of bird-eating tarantulas bursting forth form my skin in a scene reminiscent of Alien, my dad (privy to my misfortune) so generously delivered me an article entitled “Beware of the Superfly with a taste for humans” Daily Mail, Thursday, July 29, 2010.
The article describes a vampiric fly that has a taste for human blood and is responsible for “a surge of infected insect bites that [have] left some victims hospitalised”. These small horrors have recently become tired of their prosaic country lifestyle and have been magnetized by the bright lights (and increasing number of water features) of the big city, inspiring a recent migration spurt. The concrete jungle is no longer a bug repellent and city dwellers have to be on their guard. The vampire-insect of which I speak is known as The Blandford Fly. It is a water dweller and is described as “small, dark and dangerous”. According to the article, the little terrors “are small enough to crawl through fabric and clothing to attack the flesh. Females use their lacerated mouths to chew through the skin and feed on blood just before mating. They prefer the taste of human blood to animal blood – and ankles and feet are their favourite targets”. So maybe The Blandford Fly has mutated to a grass dwelling creature with a sweet pair of fangs, and on my picnic day managed to eat through the leather of my Dr Martens 16-up boots to bite my poor feet… and then nested in my shoes so that when I wore them the next day my ankles served as Blandford fly lunch. Bring on Ripley: Master (or Mistress) of extermination.
