NEW YORK (1010 WINS) -- On Thursday evening, a swarm of small green and white insects, resembling gnats or midges, descended upon Manhattan and Brooklyn.
At first, New Yorkers mistook the clouds of insects for particles of wildfire smoke hanging over the city. But once the bugs got closer, landing on clothes and lodging in beards, people began to wonder what they actually were, or how they got here.
"They're harmless, but they were in numbers last night that we probably couldn't even calculate," said Danny Owen, who was in the East Village when it got infested. Taking the subway uptown, he found the insects flying around the train car.
While the bugs aren't nearly as harmful as the air quality, the smoke might explain what the insects are. The genus Microsania, for instance, thrives in post-fiery conditions like the one New York finds itself in. Alternatively, the bugs may have been gnats, or even the winged stage of aphids.
No matter what, these insects, despite resembling a Biblical plague launched upon the five boroughs, were nothing more than a nuisance.
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