Health officials are trying to figure out what insect is causing a bunch of mysterious bug bites on people who live in one specific county in Virginia, UPI reports.
Some Arlington County residents say that they were bitten by an insect that they thought was a mosquito, but soon realized that it had to be something else after the bumps swelled to a much larger than normal size.
"It started to grow and it swelled, and then I was at work one day and I noticed that it was blistering," Morgan Dailey said to WRC-TV.
The Arlington County Health Department is still unable to identify what insect species is causing the bites, but they believe they’ve narrowed it down to one.
"The leading suspect at this point is something called a pyemote, which is a type of mite that likes to feed on cicada eggs, so they must be very happy with their food supply at the moment," health department spokesman told WJLA-TV.
The health department said that the pyemote bites aren’t dangerous or life threatening, but if not treated or if they're scratched, they could become infected.