Far North Rambles #11: Bulldogs
Bulldogs: they bite with a wallop. In a previous Ramble, I shared some experiences about the biting insects that are so common in the bush, and not just in the far north. There is one biting insect that is the top of the "bite chain". I had seen them in small numbers throughout my career, but what I saw in Northwest Territories (NT) just “blew my mind”.
In NT, they are called “bulldogs” (Photo below). When you see their behaviour, it is easy to understand how they acquired their informal name. In a word, they are “tenacious”. They fly in numbers that turns the sky into blurred grey colour. Their constant drone is bothersome as they perform acrobatics around your head, looking for an exposed piece of skin to ravage. When the buzzing stops, you search frantically to find that square centimetre of exposed skin because you know you have about 3 seconds to locate the bulldog before it pierces your skin with its blunt surgical instruments to remove a pound of flesh! When they buzz around you in the 1000’s, you don’t hear them land, but you feel the pain as they pierce their dagger into your exposed neck.
In Ontario, they are affectionately called “moose flies”. I say "think" because I don’t know if they are the same species as I saw in NT. I have endured the Ontario moose fly for decades. I worked with a geologist who regularly tied fishing line around a single moose fly and attached it to the top of his hat, where it would fly around in circles on the leash. He said it was a warning to the other moose flies to stay away. The only place in Ontario where I saw huge numbers of these flies was at the Fort Severn airport. There, the bulldog insects showed an interesting behaviour. They were attracted to warm carbon dioxide gas coming out of the exhaust pipes of a turbine PC-12 aircraft, which had just landed. We know that many biting insects locate warm blooded animals, two or four legged, by tracking the carbon dioxide gas we exhale. Those Fort Severn bulldog flies must have thought they had died and gone to heaven, having found the biggest, hottest, meanest, most gaseous animal of the far north.
The most disturbing experience I had with bulldogs was in NT during the summer of 2013. I saw literally 1000’s in the air waiting for us to get out of the truck. I saw 100’s per square metre on walls where they were trapped in a building (Photo below).
Biting “Bulldog” insects trapped on the inside of a gas station building, Enterprise, Northwest Territories, Canada, June 30/13. Photo by Andy Fyon.
I saw a baby Wood Bison running madly because it was terrorized by the biting bulldogs. It was a remarkable bulldog day! The attached video I shot in Hay River, Northwest Territories gives you a sense of how tenacious those bulldog flies were in NT during the summer of 2013. Now, in the video, I commented that they don’t bite, but that was a bit of an understatement. The view outside the truck window was not exactly the warm welcome that encourages a tranquil walk through the bush! Those bulldogs bite with a wallop.
Bulldog horse flies (Tabanidae) are common across northern Canada. Bulldog insects appear during hot summer weather. The "bulldog" variety is a local name for these large (1 cm long) flies in Northwest Territories, Canada. This video was recorded by Andy Fyon near Hay River, Northwest Territories, Canada, on June 27, 2013.