Horrid Fly

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kate081

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When I got to A this evening she was being pestered by a really horrid fly. I brought her in & swatted it. Looked like a wasp but was more beige & brown than yellow & black. It wasn't a bot fly or horse fly - any ideas? Never seen anything like it.
 
Ive seen a couple around over the past week they are huge, they look like a bigger version of the horse fly, luckily i manged to swat the little critters
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It wasn't a clegg fly was it like this one? It is a notch horned clegg fly also known as a Haematopota pluvialis
notch horned clegg

They are horrible little buggers. Bigger than a housefly and do look striped when in flight or resting mainly due to the pattern on their wings. They will bother horses and people as well as other livestock. I have seen them on the horses and last week when we took the dogs for a walk in the woods I got bitten alive by them. They didn't bother my partner at all, just me lol. Couldn't hear them as they are silent. The first you know they are on you is the prick you feel ( gosh that sounds awfully rude lol). Seriously though if it is one of these or if anyone has seen these, they do hurt. They cut through your flesh with a knife-like mandible and then suck your blood. They are not as delicate as a mosquito. Be warned if you do get bitten you may react as I did and the bites cause swelling, oozing and severe itching coupled with soreness. Some of my bites are still itching more than a week later. They didn't even get a good bite of me. In most cases they were knocked off as soon as I felt them but each bite has left a lump.
If you squish one on your horse you will see how effective they are by the amount of blood that comes out of their body, yuk
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Caz
 
Thats a nasty looking little bugger
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I got bitten by a fly the other day but I think I managed to squish it before it had chance to get much of a taste of me
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Darn flies are a ruddy nuisance
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Tell me about it. If it isn't flies after any sweat it is those little red eyed monsters that look mini houseflies that bite you then it is these clegg flies. They are pretty common these flies. Here is another picture so you can see exactly what she cuts your skin with. It is magnified but its no where near as thin as the drinking straw that mosquitos use. These flies are very, very persistent and even if you swat them away they will come back. The one's that landed on me were there for a few seconds if that and yet they didn't half leave a mess on one arm. I got bitten from the hand/wrist downwards.
Here is the picture notch horned clegg magnified female face
 
Get a pic of it next time abbey_tilley so we can all be grossed out like with staffs_oatcake pic that made me shiver. Every day I discover unknown life forms buzzing round my neds (and me). Where can I get hold of a pet oxpecker?
 
Lol I know just what you mean. I usually end up researching strange beasties I come across, especially bugs and flies. If they are biting ones I want to know what they are and more importantly what they can spread to me or my horses which is increasingly important with the current state of the UK climate and the effects of global warming.
Could this be the fly Abbey_tilley was referring to? It's called a Splayed deer fly ( Chrysops caecutiens) and does resemble a wasp/honey bee. According to the website on the link reports were made of a sighting in Berkshire.

Splayed deerfly
 
Was it about the size of a ten pence piece? Seriously - that huge.
silent approach and like a big bee quite dark.
We have these up here and they only approach a tethered horse with any determination. I think they must be very slow flies, ( cos so heavy) so they haven't a chance of getting a meal, if the horse can trot away.
Tied Jack up yesterday to groom him and one descended.
Very persistent Jack was bucking and kicking out at it so frantically that I could not get him untied. He eventually whacked it with his huge bum and it flew away for a sec whilst I bunged him in the field.
They look like something alien, they are the largest insect I have seen in this country other than a stag beetle or a dragonfly.
They are the Ox Gad Fly and belong to the family of Tabanidae and are blood suckers.
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Staffs_oatcake - your knowledge of all things nasty is quite amazing! Get a life woman!!!

Seriously though - I got bitten 2 years ago, through my jods, by something (could have been one of the above). At the time I got a swelling bigger than a tennis ball on my leg (nice) and it still itches and swells a bit from time to time even now!

Avoid them if you can!!
 
I think that's it. So where do they live? I don't think it had managed to bite her much. Put aloe vera on the places it had. She was a right sweaty state from it. Wasn't as easy to kill as a horse fly as it was a bit quicker. The second one flew off when I sprayed it with Deet. I didn't have time to photo the dead one - think I should still be able to find it. If I do, I'll post it on here. Yuk yuk yuk.
 
No it wasn't that big & it wasn't so brightly coloured. That sounds even worse. Think it's what Oatcake said. I hope there aren't too many more lurking. She was out in the field & it followed into the stable. I suspect she had been trying to run away coz she was sweaty. Flies were awful here last night - was so humid.
 
Clegs are THE WORST and very common up here in th north of scotland. I got btten through denim jods and ended up with a huge welt on my leg. The only thing going for them is that they are quite slow and therefore easy to bash to death when they perch on you or your horse.

F x
 
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