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blackfly
(redirected from Blackflies)

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blackfly

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Black fly (Simuliidae)
(credit: E.S. Ross)
Any member of the insect family Simuliidae, comprising 300 species of small, humpbacked dipterans found worldwide. Usually black or dark gray, the blackfly has short mouthparts adapted for sucking blood. The females bite and are sometimes abundant enough to kill chickens and even cattle. Some species carry worms capable of causing human disease, including river blindness. In subarctic regions blackflies may be so numerous that human habitation is impossible.



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So the delegates made their way through summer in Philadelphia, with its biting blackflies and free-roaming pigs feasting on the bodies of dead dogs and horses that littered the vacant lots.
It is often called river blindness because of its most extreme manifestation and because the blackflies that transmit the disease abound in riverside areas, where they breed in fast-flowing waters.
On the brink of insanity, I seek refuge from the attacking blackflies by wallowing like a new species of polar hippo into Allagash Lake.
 
 
 
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