@jyokota 606/5000 Thank you, Junko, for your nice attention!
The danceflies (Chironomidae) belong to the group of mosquitoes. They live only a few days. When they are looking for a partner, they form big swarms - the dance swarms. The swarms consist of males, depending on the species at certain times of the day. It must be windless. The males rise up and down in the swarm - they "dance". The wing beat of the males produces a kind of buzzing sound that attracts females. These are taken in flight and copulated. I often observe such mosquito swarms in my garden. In the back light of the setting sun, these dancing mosquitoes are magical.
@jerome -- THANK YOU for the detailed information! Now, can I double fav it since I already faved it? I wonder if there are such dance flies in other parts of the world than where you live. Must keep a sharp eye out. How did you get the background bokeh -- from the setting sun? It looks to me more like artificial even lighting. Curious.
@jyokota Thank you very much for your nice reply!
The dance flies are common throughout the world. There are about 5000 species. Most of the bokeh I added afterwards - I wanted to increase the movement of the mosquitoes pictorially.
Thank you - and if I could read German I'd even know more. The video presented the dance flies magically but then found that here in the USA< they are called "midges" and Taffy says they are all over Beaver Island where she lives.
I didn't mean for you to have to translate all that -- I found some info at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chironomidae now that I know what they are called here. Frankly, I like the idea of "dance flies" better.
@jyokota Now my translation of text in the shortvideo:
The dancing swarms of winter mosquitoes
____________________
- winter mosquitoes
- 4 to 7 mm in size
- insensitive to cold
- glycerine-like substances in the body fluid = antifreeze
- active already at just over 0°C
- absorption of minimal radiation due to dark body color and black veins in the transparent wings (see my pictures!)
- the larvae live in the soil, under leaf litter and feed on plant residues
- nutrition of mosquitoes: unknown
- They do not have piercing-sucking mouth tools (see my macro photos)
So: completely harmless to humans!
The danceflies (Chironomidae) belong to the group of mosquitoes. They live only a few days. When they are looking for a partner, they form big swarms - the dance swarms. The swarms consist of males, depending on the species at certain times of the day. It must be windless. The males rise up and down in the swarm - they "dance". The wing beat of the males produces a kind of buzzing sound that attracts females. These are taken in flight and copulated. I often observe such mosquito swarms in my garden. In the back light of the setting sun, these dancing mosquitoes are magical.
The dance flies are common throughout the world. There are about 5000 species. Most of the bokeh I added afterwards - I wanted to increase the movement of the mosquitoes pictorially.
So you call thes flies "midges" - well.
The dancing swarms of winter mosquitoes
____________________
- winter mosquitoes
- 4 to 7 mm in size
- insensitive to cold
- glycerine-like substances in the body fluid = antifreeze
- active already at just over 0°C
- absorption of minimal radiation due to dark body color and black veins in the transparent wings (see my pictures!)
- the larvae live in the soil, under leaf litter and feed on plant residues
- nutrition of mosquitoes: unknown
- They do not have piercing-sucking mouth tools (see my macro photos)
So: completely harmless to humans!
:)
Thank you very much for your nice comments!
As is so often the case, a few attempts were necessary.