Dance crush

The term dance swarm denotes a gathering of certain flying insects that fly up and down in the air and thereby generate a characteristic humming sound through their wing beat , which attracts the opposite sex. Such dance swarms are, for example, dance flies , biting midges , trichoceridae or Caddisflies known. Depending on the species, dance swarms can only be formed by one sex (usually the male ) or by both sexes.

Particularly impressive dance swarms form midges about striking terrain markers. Due to the massive occurrence of these mosquitoes, these swarms act like columns of smoke. The small dance swarms of Aedes vexans are usually only two meters above the ground, while the swarms of mosquitoes can reach heights of a hundred meters in good weather.

Dancing swarms can usually be observed in summer, but they also occur in the cold season, for example with the winter mosquitoes (Trichoceridae).

swell

• Norbert Becker, Paul Glaser, Hermann Magin: Biological mosquito control on the Upper Rhine , (commemorative publication) 20 years of municipal action group to combat the snake plague, 1996, ISBN 3-00-000584-6