I got a good pic. of a Blackfly but can't it in Bug Files

What am I doing wrong? Surely they must be there somewhere considering they drive us gardeners insane in the spring.

Probably not doing anything wrong, especially if you squashed that thing after you took the picture!

There's a whole family of these buggers (Simuliidae), and they're so tiny they're hard to ID. I think new entries in bugfiles have to have a picture with an ID to the genus level, which would be difficult. But maybe possible?
In case you didn't know, they're a northern problem - nobody around here would know what they are. I used to live in Maine so I was a blood donor too (worked outdoors).

So...what do I do? or is it hopeless?

Move south? SOrry, I couldn't resist. I'd post its mugshot in the ID forum - wallaby1 might have a clue.

I agree, such a notorious pest deserves more recognition, somehow. Maybe kennedyh will have an idea.

Thank you!! I'll do that.

With these things swarming me and the mosquitoes kicking in, moving South sounds like a good idea about now.

threegardeners,
we would love to be able to include your Black Fly image in BugFiles, but to do so we need to be able to identify it at least as far as the genus.

There seem to be two common genera of Black Flies in the US, Prosimulium and Simulium, but I cannot find enough information to decide which yours belongs to.

If you do manage to identify it any further, post the information here and I will create an entry to introduce the family Simuliidae to BugFiles

Kennedy

Would it make a difference that this is a Canadian Black Fly??

Maybe we only have one Genus...

No, they are both in Canada!

This is impossible!!

There is no place on the web, that I can find anyways, that lists a comparison between Black Fly types...everything I have read deals in DNA differences.

Good Grief!!

I suppose we'll have the same problem with this guy too, eh?

Can't we just have a "Black fly" entry?

Since the only way to tell them all apart is by DNA tests, they can't be all that different really, can they?