Simulium sp. from Ecuador (Simuliidae) feasting on my blood. Ironically, being bitten by this hungry little lady was more fun than fighting hungry crowds at the mall would be today…
You can thank black fly expert Dr. Douglas Currie of the Royal Ontario Museum for this awesome pun:
@bioinfocus @pselaphinae @jmedeccf Black Friday?I prefer Black Fly Day!
— Doug Currie (@DouglasCurrie1) November 23, 2012
Related, Doug will be hosting a special Curators’ Corner meet & greet at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto from 11:00-4:00 tomorrow (Nov. 24, 2012), where he’ll be talking about Arctic biodiversity, black flies and climate change. Check it out if you happen to be in the area, I’m sure it’ll be a bloody good time!
UPDATE: Behold the power of social media! After tweeting back and forth with Doug Currie & Chris Buddle about #BlackFlyDay, one of the tweets was picked up by Tom Allen, DJ for CBC Radio 2’s afternoon radio show SHIFT, who then scheduled a portion of his afternoon playlist around Black Flies! I’m not sure whether today’s episode will be archived (I’ll embed it here if I find it later), but you can listen live to hear Tom Allen discussing #BlackFlyDay at about 5:20 EST (2:20 PST) on CBC Radio 2 (here’s the West Coast broadcast online for those not living in Vancouver).
Great Pic! I believe it’s a female of Simulium (Psilopelmia) bicoloratum… among the nastiest pests in the Andes from Venezuela to Bolivia.
Awesome, thanks for the ID & information Doug, and congrats on influencing CBC Radio programming this afternoon!