Wednesday, June 20, 2012

The Stuff of Nightmares

I photographed a Black Horse Fly (Tabanus atratus) today carefully laying her eggs on a cattail stalk. Lost in concentration, she (thankfully) ignored me and let me approach, again and again and again.

Had she not been so preoccupied, I'd never have taken her photograph because of the pain and potential danger of her bite.  When I first saw one of these several years ago, my friend Jill had to tell me what it was and what it could do to me.  The female, a carnivore, can "cut through the skin using razor-sharp mouthparts that are shaped like a knife or razor.  The fl[y] will then suck the blood up from the wound for several minutes."  She is one bad bug, well deserving of her "inky black cloak," to quote Hamlet. 

In eighth grade, I read Bram Stoker's Dracula and grew so fearful of bats that any noise at my window sent me shivering from my bedroom.  I might have known better: here's the true vampire and right now she and her kind have made Lake Cheston their birthing rooms.  I must tread with care.

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