Highland midge
The highland midge is a tiny biting fly, famous in Scotland. In summer it flies in big clouds over wet, boggy places. You can hardly see one alone, but you can feel a whole cloud of them.
How fast is it?
Fun facts
It is busiest just before sunrise and around sunset.
Wind and dry, sunny weather keep it away, but rain and darkness do not.
It hardly ever goes into houses, but it happily flies into tents and cars.
Its larvae grow up in wet, boggy soil.
After a very cold Scottish winter in 2010, there were even more midges, because the cold had cut down the bats and birds that eat them.
Most asked questions about Highland midge
?Do highland midges bite?
Yes, the females bite. The bite can itch for a while but is not dangerous.
?When are midges worst in Scotland?
From late spring to late summer, especially on calm, cloudy, damp days around dawn and dusk.
?How do you keep midges away?
Cover your skin, wear a head net, and use an insect repellent. People also used oil from a bog plant called bog myrtle.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Culicoides impunctatus
- Group
- Flies and mosquitoes
- Family
- Ceratopogonidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Diptera > Ceratopogonidae
- Lives on
- Europe, Asia
- Also known as
- Midgie
Where the facts come from
- Highland midge (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by Dunpharlain. CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.
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