Laurence Dollimore
VILE blood-sucking flies are on the rise in Spain – and they’re on their way to the Costa del Sol.
La Mosca Negra – or the black fly – was first detected in the country in 2006 along the banks of the river Ebro in Aragon.
Unlike other flying insects, the black fly attacks during the day, and is able to get inside long garments to reach your skin.
Only the female bites and in the most serious cases they can land you in the hospital.
When they bite, they remove a little piece of skin and inoculate an anesthetic and a little anticoagulant to be able to feed on your blood for a while without you noticing.
It is the saliva of the fly which causes the reaction, usually a huge red lump which can swell and be aggravated depending on how allergic you are to the saliva.
Their bites are capable of killing mice and birds.
When they first appeared in Aragon in 2006, some 2,000 people had to be treated for bites.
Last year the region saw a whopping 28,500 medical consultations and, according to El Confidencial, now the residents of Butarque, in Madrid, are suffering the consequences of a new black fly plague.
Experts say they have colonised on the nearby Manzanares River, which will most likely help them expand to other areas.
The black fly has already reproduced massively in Catalunya and Valencia and lastly in Murcia.
Experts already fear that in the coming summers their virulent bites will also be noticed in areas of Andalucia and Extremadura.
“They are here to stay, and they are going to go further… In the last ten years we have seen how specific plagues in Monegros or the upper Ebro area have already multiplied to Logroño,” animal expert Javier Lucientes told El Confidencial.
“And climate change has a lot to do with it, thanks to more mild winters which the fly takes advantage of it.”
