Bugs @ Grutas de Cacahuamilpa, Taxco
Replies: 9 - Last Post: May 14, 2012 7:24 AM Last Post By: hexstatic1
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Bugs @ Grutas de Cacahuamilpa, Taxco
In early January I had a nice visit to the caves at Grutas de Cacahuamilpa National Park near Taxco. On my way out, as I was waiting for the bus near the ticket booths, there were a huge number of flies. They hadn't been there when I arrived (around 10:00 am). They were quite small (maybe two or three millimeters across), black and heart-shaped. They ravaged my legs, which were my only exposed skin. The bite marks looked like a tiny pin prick of dark red, surrounded by a circle of red irritation about one centimeter across, with another white ring around the redness. It's now May and the bites still haven't healed completely. Any ideas what these bugs were? Will my legs ever heal? I haven't seen any warnings for the area and I didn't have problems with bites anywhere else on my trip (or on my previous seven-month trip in Mexico!).6
Sounds like they were some kind of blackfly or gnat. There are a few major families of biting fly- in case you're curious try looking up Ceratopogonidae and Simuliidae (I'd bet they're the latter; it's unlikely they're Psychodidae); perhaps you'll be able to identify them.Blackflies are a problem in many places- in the Canyon Country of Utah summer can be awful, and we've had friends who got devoured by the 'bobos' in El Fuerte, Sinaloa. By the way, in other areas similar flies are called jejenes.
Except for the sand flies (the last family I mentioned), the others rarely transmit disease. If you are ready for a nap, you can try Benedryl, otherwise they should eventually heal on their own. The only good thing about them is that simply covering skin stops their attack.
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I was bitten by sand flies in Puerto Vallarta last year and it took months for the bites to go away completely. I scratched them of course (big mistake) which made them worse. The horrible itchy bites lasted for something like 6-8 weeks and the scars didn't go away completely for months. In contrast my young son was also bitten and his bites faded completely within a week to 10 days. I don't have any advice for you, just commiseration. Poster #5 is right that some people can have really allergic reactions to certain bug bites.
