Environment
A Millions-Strong Horde of Flies Descends Upon a Canadian City
The insect clouds are so dense “you need a gas mask,” says a local.
Spring is in full effect, and for some waterside communities that means one thing: godawful, writhing clouds of flies so thick “you need a gas mask” to go outside, according to one man in Kingston, Ontario.
The city of roughly 123,000 bug-besotted souls is dealing with the annual arrival of mayflies, which swarm out of lakes and rivers for intense group sex before quickly expiring. These so-called emergences can get so huge they’re visible on radar, and coat cars and buildings with squirming carpets of legs, wings, and genital claspers. When an emergence ends it’s a signal to get out the Shop-Vac, as the dead flies can accumulate in piles not unlike gross snowbanks.