Gnats or something more? NYC gripped by flying creature mystery
NEW YORK CITY - Mysterious flying creatures appear to be taking over the city. They seem like their gnats - but that hasn't been confirmed. Whatever they are - no one in the city seems to be spared from the pesty problem.
"I don't know what's going on in New York right now but look at all these bugs that are just dying on my shirt," said @benputzer_ / @visitour.me in a post on Twitter.
Many New Yorkers have noticed the newcomers this week. Small flies swarmed in the sticky, smoky air.
"I was sitting in a bar in Tribeca yesterday, it was clear, it was fine, having a beer," said one resident.
"Coming from Brooklyn I saw it, and I said OK, let me go to the city and maybe have less of them," said another. "No."
There are several theories behind the bugs' arrival -- that they're aphids, who are exceptionally annoying but do little harm. That they're gnats, flying south to avoid the smoke from the Canadian wildfires.
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It's true -- that after a series of oddities and outrageous events, people just assume the apocalypse is imminent. Even the New York Times ran with the headline, "First the Smoke. Now the Bugs."
"These are just aphids," clarified Jody Gangloff-Kaufmann, a Cornell University entomologist. "Aphids have a cycle where they are reproductive, and they develop wings, and they fly off from the host plant, usually a tree in this case. And it seems to have happened all at once throughout the city from north to south."
And while breathing in bugs isn't pleasant, they're able to breed in the heat and gorge on the dense vegetation. Just look at what will probably be their short-lived presence as a sign -- summer is here.
"It won't be much longer, I'm sure," Gangloff said.