New Yorkers are being plagued with swarms of flying bugs amid a smoky haze from Canadian wildfires as they head in to Independence Day festivities, the New York Times reported.
The winged menace being swatted away to little avail are aphids, experts say, not gnats, as some battling the minuscule bugs had mistakenly surmised.
Fortunately, the aphids present no health concern. Unfortunately, they present a considerable nuisance to natives and tourists alike.
Swarms this time of year are unusual, as aphids don’t typically come out in New York City until after summer, Professor David Lohman, an entomologist at the City University of New York, told WNBC. Lohman theorized the warm winter could have contributed to the early arrival.
“I wanted to dodge them. One of them flew in my nose and it was not pleasant,” Martin Perez, an Upper East Sider told the outlet.
The soft bodied, green or white insects emerge to coordinate reproduction, Dr. Corrie Moreau, a Cornell University entomology professor told the New York Times. Moreau agrees with Lohman that the warm winter is to blame for the timing.
Folks who have accidentally swallowed aphids as they make their way through the swarm have little cause for concern, Moreau also said, adding that people should be wearing masks anyway due to air quality concerns.
The bugs’ appearance is not likely to be related to smoke from the Canadian wildfires, State University of New York entomologist Kim Adams told the outlet, remarking on the haze that has descended on the city once again.
Though the smoke appears unrelated to the aphids, it does add to beleaguered Gothamists’ discomfort.
As of Saturday afternoon, the air quality index level for New York City was in the “unhealthy for sensitive groups” range at 105.
New Yorkers are not alone in facing a hazy summer.
“The number of people that are exposed is unprecedented in the modern era,” Michael Wara, an energy and climate policy expert at Stanford University told the Washington Post.
Air quality alerts affected 23 states Thursday, the outlet also said.
A “Code Red” warning was issued Thursday as smog drifted back into D.C., WTOP reported.
Experts say smog and haze can be especially problematic for people with conditions like asthma and chronic lung diseases. They recommend paying attention to local air quality reports, staying indoors, and running an air conditioner.
Biblical plagues? No sympathy for that shithole from me.
If we see frogs or burning rain well know for sure.
Escape to Babylon, waiting for the plague of locust.
Could not hapoen to a better place.
i reconize this kind of thing…..when i was younger we would visit my relatives in louisiana often. and during a certain time of year….these tiny black bugs would swarm the entire area….some called them LOVE BUGS….we called them two buggeds……they were mating …we were too young to know that …but they were in every square inch of the air…and you breathed them in and swallowed them..i hated that…you couldnt be outside….however louisiana is the mosquito capital of the world…so you were dealing with them as well but who knows maybe the love bugs could eat them…they need some bats living there to get rid of them…the mosquitos that is…
New York. Consider the harm done morally and culturally by the liberals who push their insane agenda on the rest of the world, denying all the while that God exists, much less takes interest in his Creation’s activities! Pestilence is one of the judgements God says will plague sinful mankind in the last days. That includes microscopic as well as those visible with the naked eye. Covid, viruses of all sorts like Aids, Monkey Pox, MRSA, Hepatitis, TB, Cancer, et al…we earned with our corruption. Then we shake our heads and wonder why…