2023-10-04 04:00:00
Quentin is a curious resident of Ensival, near Liège. He pressed the orange Alert Us button after observing a strange phenomenon. For several days, clouds of insects formed near his home. What are these beasts? Is this a common situation?
On September 14, 15 and 16, Quentin saw the unprecedented. From the terrace of his house, he saw a strange trick taking place, a few meters from him. What he first thought were small campfires later turned out to be clouds of insects. Thousands of small insects grouped together, undulating in the sky, not far from the roofs of the town’s houses. “I’ve lived here five years, and I’ve never seen this!” tells us Quentin, 23 years old and an industrial engineer. “I think it was mosquitoes or specks.”
For three days in a row, the Ensivalois observes this little trick without understanding what is happening. No warning signs presented themselves, and the weather was mild. “It was very mild, neither too hot nor too cold, between 19 and 21 degrees,” he explains. “The sun was slowly setting on the horizon.”
Difficult to explain this phenomenon, according to Frédéric Francis, entomologist at the University of Agro-Bio Tech in Gembloux. This stupid professional has, a priori, no concrete explanations to giver. “So far I haven’t had any clouds of insects come back to town lately”, he regrets. So, yes, there are certain periods when insects gather, but this month of September is not one of them. “This kind of event can happen during the grain harvest, for example, but that is not the case at the moment…”indicates the entomologist.
And when he looks more closely, the expert is no further ahead. “Impossible to distinguish the nature of the insects photographed. It is possible to have ‘clouds’ of insects, flies, mosquitoes or aphids…” But no ideas on these critters in particular. For Frédéric Francis, a sample is essential.
And you?
You may live in Ensival or the surrounding area and may have also observed the phenomenon shown by our alerter Quentin. All coherent hypotheses with supporting explanations are welcome…
Sophie, who also contacted the RTL info editorial team via the orange Alert us button, has her own idea. “There are tornadoes of insects above the trees in Verviers. You can see them from the highway. They look like mosquitoes. It’s super impressive”she wrote to us on October 1st.
animals entomology insect mosquito gembloux
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