Non-biting Midge - Blog Posts

Non-Biting Midge (Xylotopus par), male, taken February 26, 2025, in Georgia, US

Despite how he looks, this guy is very much alive and flew off shortly after I took these pictures! I swiped him out of the sky and shook him around in my hand to stun him so I could get pictures, hence his totally shocked appearance.

This guy is one of the cousins of the arguably less friendly mosquito! I really enjoy photographing midges, but as I'm not super knowledgeable of them yet, I mostly rely on IDers (THE IDer in the case of this family) on iNat to point me in the right direction. One of the first things I learned is that males of this family can easily be differentiated from females by their long, thin abdomens and big, fuzzy antennae! This is also the case for mosquitos and most other nematoceran flies, though it can be very hard to tell when it comes to groups like crane flies, who can be more reliably sexed by their abdomen!