That’s what some New Zealanders refer to the biting sandfly as, however I much prefer the term Evil Demons or The Spawn of Satan. Now, I realize that God created these little things, but I cannot fathom what possible good they serve aside from a persistent reminder that this is not our home. In heaven, it will be 100% pure paradise minus sandflies, or any other nuisance.
We learned that there are 13 different species of sandflies here, but only two kinds are the biting kind. And only the females bite. They need blood to feast on in order to lay their eggs and produce more hateful little brats. We try to do our part of killing as many as possible, however I know it is not even making a dent in the insane population of them. They are worse in the South Island and though they nest near water, there seems to be no bounds to where they are. Also, they don’t actually bite, but they cut you and then release chemicals as they drink your blood that draws to the surface. Your body reacts to those chemicals something fierce and you will itch incessantly for days. Way worse than mosquitoes in my opinion and I HATE mosquitoes. In fact, I never thought I would say something like this, but honestly I’d much rather be around mosquitoes than swarm of these evil little creatures.
If you don’t know about them, you might at first mistake them as harmless little annoying fruit flies or gnats (like I did) and then you suffer after they have their feast. They prey on feet especially and prefer the sweat of some over others; apparently I have the cream of the crop sweat because they seem to seek me out! The itching will wake you in the night and keep you from getting a full night’s sleep. Anti-itch does not seem to help very much. But if you are diligent in keeping yourself covered in insect repellent you can usually avoid the bites.
As far as I’m concerned, they can keep their islands. I’ll take my chances with the mosquitoes back home.