Once bitten, twice shy

Whether they bite, suck or sting, some insects are a downright pain in the arm, says Simon Lester, as he identifies the most troublesome little nippers

- Simon Lester

INSECTS are headline news at the moment because of their dramatic decline (‘The end need not be nigh’, August 4) and rightly so. They can survive without us, but we cannot survive without them. We are at a time of year when we literally take them under our skin— summer into autumn is when we are most likely to get bitten, stung and sucked. Ants in your pants at a picnic, a wasp on your glass, midges driving you indoors at a barbecue or a vicious cleg (horse fly) whacking you on the back of the leg in the garden.

Some are seeking food, some are defensive and others are darn well aggressive; most are irritating, some are painful and a few can even be lethal. At these times, we are not so charitable to our arthropod friends. Whether it is at work, play or even asleep, odds on one or more of these critters will get you, from the largest vespa to the minute midge or mite. It doesn’t matter, either, if you live in the countryside or the town—no one is immune. As someone who has lived and worked in the countryside all of his life, as a gamekeeper on different estates across the country, I have been bitten, stung and sucked by most of the creatures on this list.