The Bugs of Summer
BY PETER B BRACE • INDEPENDENTWRITER
If they had any concept of time, they would look forward to summer

with as much anticipation as we do.

But like us, however, the bugs of summer always enjoy a good meal.

Mosquitoes, greenheads, horseflies, deer flies, deer ticks, no-see-ums and spiders, these are the warm weather bugs on Nantucket, the usurpers and spoilers of our summer experience.

Jabbers of razor-sharp mouthparts, some more painful than others, and carriers of nasty diseases, these often-invisible little pests cannot be eradicated but, instead, must be endured.

Aside from sprays, lotions and wipes, there is not much we can do except try and avoid the island locations they infest. Bug zappers, C02 traps and citronella candles can only do so much, while efforts to rid the island of mosquitoes and deer ticks barely make a dent.

MOSQUITOES

Nantucket combats its saltwater mosquitoes in the salt marshes where they breed. In the 1930s, the town dug shallow ditches from the harbors into the salt marshes. Fish that forage in the salt marsh work their way into the ditches and eat the mosquito eggs that are laid in the water. Also, when free of debris and overgrown vegetation, tidal action prevents standing water pools from developing and, thus, mosquito eggs from surviving.

Using a specially modified miniature excavator, the town cleaned out all of its ditches in Madaket two years ago and the result this summer is fewer mosquitoes in Madaket, the mosquito capital of Nantucket, according to Department of Public Works Superintendent Jeff Willett.

"They've not been bad at all," said Willett. The work that Peter [Brady] is doing is having a tremendous beneficial result and thus far, I have not received a mosquito complaint this summer."

Brady, the DPW's one-man mosquito wrecking crew, spends a good portion of the warmer months seeking freshwater mosquito breeding areas on public lands (and on private property where he is invited), dropping Altocid pellets that kill mosquitoes in their larval stage into the shallow waters where they breed.

"He's out every single day looking for mosquito breeding areas and he covers all different parts of the island and when he discovers them, he treats them. He's been pretty successful, but he cannot cover the whole island," said Willett.

For all its work, the town is not really combating any sort of epidemic, just making sure islanders and visitors can enjoy their time outside. The three diseases carried by mosquitoes on Nantucket that Health Inspector Richard Ray is concerned with - malaria, Eastern equine encephalitis and West Nile virus - are rarely seen here.

"Malaria certainly takes a backseat, and the next least important one is Eastern equine encephalitis because it's never made the jump here, and then there's West Nile virus," said Ray. "We found it almost two years ago, but we have seen nothing since."

Should incidents of these diseases swell, Ray can recommend that the Board of Health declare a health emergency, which would authorize it to spray the problem areas of the island with Sumithrin, an insecticide that kills adult mosquitoes on contact.

Mosquitoes - freshwater and salt - are only slightly more dangerous than the rest of Nantucket's winged, biting pests, which are nothing more than a nuisance that can be avoided if you know where they are, when they are around and how to deal with them.

FLIES AND SPIDERS Ray mentioned greenhead flies, horseflies and deer flies "only because they're a complete nuisance and painful, particularly the greenheads, but as in past summers, I have had no complaints from people about mosquitoes."

Even further down the list, though probably highest on the overall fear meter, are several species of spiders that really do not want anything to do with humans at all.

"Every other year we have concerns over recluse spiders on the island, but we've never been able to pin it down definitely," said Ray.

Ray added that much more effort should go into avoiding deer ticks, carriers of Lyme disease, Babesiosis and Erhlichiosis.

BEACH NUISANCE

Go to the roiling South Shore and you may have to deal with rip currents and possibly various types of stinging jellyfish.

Spend your time anywhere in the vicinity of a placid salt marsh, however, and you will likely encounter one or all three gadflies and one miniscule ground bug that plague the island in the summer.

Greenhead flies, having spent the winter in the pupa stage, emerge from Nantucket salt marshes in late June, peak in July and can last into early September. After the female lays one round of eggs, she needs animal blood for energy before she can lay any more. Though slow moving, they pack a sharp, painful bite as they stab their pincers into your skin looking for a blood meal. About a half-inch long with bright green eyes, the greenhead lives three to four weeks.

That is a lot longer than the salt marsh mosquito that lives just one to two weeks, using the same animal blood to produce eggs. Ninety percent of Nantucket's mosquitoes are one of several saltwater species.

Then there are the no-see-ums, actually called midges, that can jab you almost as hard as some greenheads.

Naturally, you are saying to yourself, "Great, glad I know so much about what just bit me, but how do I keep them away from me?"

Fear not. Trustees of Reservations Property Manager Steve Nicolle has some good advice.

"At Great Point you can usually find a good enough breeze, but we also use DEET to keep mosquitoes away, sometimes we have to do that," said Nicolle.

MOORS GAUNTLET Should you choose to explore the moors during the summer months, you will undoubtedly encounter deer flies, horseflies, freshwater mosquitoes and deer ticks.

Cousins to the greenhead, deer flies are about a half-inch in length, have dark bands across their wings and orange eyes. Horse flies are three quarters of an inch to an inch long with dark heavy bodies and big eyes.

As with mosquitoes and greenheads, female deer and horse flies are out for blood. Both adults show up in early summer and can live up to a month. They thrive in forests, fields and meadows, inflicting painful bites on humans, livestock and other mammals.

Like their saltwater relatives, freshwater mosquitoes, that account for only 10 percent of all mosquito species found on Nantucket, live about one to two weeks, with the females also doing the biting, but they lay their eggs in swamps, along pond edges and in the cranberry bogs.

ROB BENCHLEY/The Independent Peter Brady and Sarah Oktay hang a CDC light trap at the UMASS Field Station. The trap utilizes dry ice (frozen carbon dioxide) and a small light to attract mosquitoes.

Selectman Allen Reinhard, the Nantucket Conservation Foundation's Middle Moors ranger, who lists greenhead flies as his least favorite on-thejob acquaintance, said his insect defense system is fairly simple: he really does not have one.

"They're probably the worst because they're such an annoyance," he said. "They're persistent; they bite, they sting. They [along with deer flies] tend to be out on hot humid afternoons when I'm out mowing or walking trails.

"I don't really do anything, except pick up the pace of my walking. Generally speaking, I don't use any insect repellent when I'm outside."

Because these bugs do not bite Reinhard as much when he is moving, he is glad to give up the greasy bug dopes that stain his clothes. However, he does check for deer tick nymphs, which are about the size of a period on this page.

Deer ticks, public enemy number one in the insect world on Nantucket, reside on the edges of shrubby woodlands, near marshes, on sand dunes in beach grass and in upland fields and meadows - basically anywhere whitetail deer live. And today that can be pretty much all over the island.

Deer ticks operate on a two-year life cycle, mating in the fall on whitetail deer. After mating, the female falls to the ground as the male continues looking for new mates. Females lay their eggs in the spring and then die. Larvae hatch from their eggs in early summer, eat one time and then nap until the next spring when they molt and appear as nymphs, the most likely stage of deer tick to attach to humans. At the end of October, the nymph molts into an adult.

Which swat victim harangues the experts of field research the most?

"Hands down, mosquitoes, because they're the most in-your-face," said Sarah Treanor, a research technician with the Nantucket Conservation Foundation, who regularly deals with swarms of freshwater mosquitoes when she is in the swamps of Nantucket scouting for spotted turtles and doing plant research. "It depends on where we're working, but when you're working in the marsh we have to wear head nets and bug jackets."

Although she prefers donning more clothing to applying lotions and aerosol-propelled chemicals to her skin, Treanor sometimes uses Burt's Bees Menthol repellent or island bird expert Edith Andrews' method of stuffing a Bounce dryer sheet under her hat or in her pocket to ward off mosquitoes.

EIGHT-LEGGED CRITTERS

Last, but not least, in our survey is the muchmaligned spider that causes much more alarm and swatting fits on Nantucket than actual human maladies.

Andrew McKenna-Foster, the Maria Mitchell Association's spider guru, said there are just a few spiders that Nantucketers worry about, such as Yellow sack spiders, that eat other spiders and garden insects. Although these arachnids are perceived to pack a wallop in their bite, McKenna-Foster said they are nonpoisonous and would rather just run around the house or garden.

"Most of the spiders that people consider pests are the house spiders," he said. "One is the American house spider and it builds tangled webs in corners, but it eats a lot of flies. And there's also the long-bodied cellar spider that's probably in every

basement on Nantucket." I