NEW ORLEANS — Billions of mosquito lookalikes are showing up in the New Orleans area, blanketing car windshields, littering the ground with little bodies and even scaring some folks.
They’re aquatic midges, often called “blind mosquitoes.” They don’t bite, and they’re good for the environment, but they sure can be a nuisance.
Entomologist Nick Delisi of the St. Tammany Mosquito Abatement District says “They tend to emerge in the billions, with a b.”
Sloshing down bug-spattered windshields has become such a chore that the manager of the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway says Motorist Assistance Patrol trucks on the 24-mile-long bridge have had to replenish their water almost daily.
Mosquito control officials say they don’t plan to do anything to control the swarms, because they die in less than a week and their larvae clean up waterways.
