10 Facts About Midges, The Zillions of Insects That Have Infested Teban Gardens

Imagine you’re minding your own business, swiping on Tinder and downing your fifth cup of bubble tea in a coffeeshop somewhere around Jurong area when you see this:

The swarm of insects are flying towards you, and you asked yourself two questions: are you in a horror movie or are you in Yishun?

The above scenario sounds as fake as Goody Feed, but it actually happened in Teban Gardens, a rather old estate near Commonwealth Secondary School and most importantly, near Pandan Reservoir.

If you’ve been reading the news, you’d have known about this:

So, what are midges and why have they invaded Jurong East instead of Yishun? And most importantly, why can’t we just do this?

Here are ten facts about midges and the infestation in Teban Gardens that many have described as “living in a horror movie”.

What Are Midges?

Technically speaking, midges are small flies. There are well over 5,000 different kinds of midges, just like there are many different kinds of flies, like houseflies, fruit flies and your annoying niece.

Some midges do bite people and suck blood, and could also spread diseases. However, most midges are like your annoying niece: they’re just annoying but don’t bite.

And the species roaming in Teban Gardens?

Midges in Teban Gardens are Non-biting Midges

The specific name of those midges is chironomid, but since all of us don’t know how to pronounce that, we usually just call them non-biting midges.

Non-biting midges, as the name suggests, don’t bite. In the past, people thought that they don’t eat as well (more on that later), but recent studies have shown that they eat fresh fly droppings, nectar, pollen, honeydew, and various sugar-rich materials.

Oh yes, they literally eat shit.

Despite their unhygienic diet, they usually pose absolutely no health risk to people except mental distress: their large presence is akin to a large group of PMD riders blasting loud techno music. However, some people might be allergic to them—and I don’t mean it figuratively but literally. Anyone who’s allergic to them should of course avoid places that are infested with any midges.

Before we move on to how they could annoy the shit out of you, here’s something even more interesting: those flying midges you see can only survive for a few days.

Non-biting Midges Spend 90% of Their Lifespan in Water

Take a look at this:

A non-biting midge spends up to three days as an egg, fourteen days as a larva and three days as a pupa before it emerges from its pupal case and turns into your niece a flying non-biting midge.

And as a full-fledged insect, it’ll live just for two days or so.

That’s why people in the past think that they don’t feed on anything since they’d just mate and die shortly after.

Think about it: there are already so many of them roaming as insects. Can you imagine how many of them are still undergoing metamorphosis?

I think counting salt is faster than counting the number of larvae in the reservoir.

They Breed in Reservoirs

Unlike mosquitoes that can only breed in stagnant water, non-biting midges usually breed in natural or man-made aquatic habitats, which means you can’t just do your 5-Step Mozzie Wipeout of a reservoir.

When shit really hit the fan, there could be several thousand midges flying out from a surface area that’s less than 1sqm in a night. For comparison’s sake, that’s about the size of your secondary school table.

Suffice to say, the scene at Pandan Reservoir at night must be damn romantic.

However, the larvae are pretty “useful” to the reservoir: other than being food for fishes and aquatic insects, they also “clean” the reservoir by consuming any organic debris in it.

In other words, our reservoir might be very clean now, but the by-products are the tiny flies flying in swarms.

But why do they fly in swarms?

Flying in Swarms to Protect Themselves and Find Mates

If you’ve only two days to live as an adult, you’d probably do what they do.

The non-biting midges usually fly in swarms for two reasons: one’s to protect themselves from predators, as large numbers would make them look intimidating (though I think they’re thinking, “Got so many around me, eat others instead of me lah”).

The second reason is to look for mates. With just two days’ lifespan, every second counts: they can’t just fly from Jurong to Yishun only to realise that their Tinder date has ghosted them.

So if you see zillions of them flying towards you, remember: they actually DGAF about you. They’re also just minding their own business.

They’re Attracted to Lights, So Switch Off Your Lights

If you live in Teban Gardens, you might want to switch off your lights when you don’t need it.

It’s unknown why, but non-biting midges are attracted to lights. However, some research has shown that LED lights are less attractive to them.

The best solution? Install insect screens in your house. Not only would you stop the swarms of non-flying midges, you’ll stop the mother of all insects from invading your house, too: flying cockroaches.

Strong Wind Can Blow Them Away

As swarms, they know about this more than anyone else: one for all, all for one.

Should there be strong winds (actually normal winds also can), the swarms would be blown away to another area because they’re that light.

With enough wind, they might be able to be blown all the way to Yishun, which would now make more sense. And they’ll die there without any offspring simply because there’s no reservoir there.

However, don’t try to blow them away with your mouth: it doesn’t work that way.

But…what if they’re blown to another reservoir?

Infestation is Actually Very Common

Unless you’re like my colleague who used to study in Commonwealth Secondary School, you might think that this is a rather new phenomenon.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Any man-made lake is extremely prone to this issue: in fact, like what my colleague wrote, in her four years of mugging in Commonwealth Secondary School, she saw the infestation every single year.

However, it wasn’t as bad as this year’s infestation. Or maybe back then, there was no social media so it didn’t create such a hoo-ha.

Other than Pandan Reservoir, the other reservoir that’s BFF with non-biting midges is Bedok Reservoir.

For something as massive as this year’s emergence, PUB has cited two examples: one at Seletar Reservoir in 1971 and one at Lower Peirce Reservoir in the 90s.

The sudden emergence is usually due to many factors, like light, rainfall, temperature and changes in water quality.

PUB’s Strategy: Gotta Eat ‘Em All

If I’m the head of PUB, I would do this:

But if you’ve read everything, you’d know that it’s a cool solution but not a feasible one. The problem lies in the water, and that’s what PUB’s doing: they’re going to eat all the larvae (since they’re at that stage the longest).

While it’s interesting to see PUB people swimming in the reservoir and eating the larvaes like Pac-Man, it’s not so feasible so they’re implementing the next best solution: they’re putting in thousands of fishes into the reservoir and let them do the dirty work.

Other than that, they’re also removing eggs and putting some larvicide to kill the babies larvae.

Here’s one interesting thing they’re doing: remember how non-flying midges are attracted to lights? They’re also installing bright lights to attract them so that they won’t fly into residents’ houses.

Interesting.

If they could install something that can attract annoying nieces—

Businesses & People Are Affected

Many reports have stated how the midge situation has affected their business: one coffeeshop owner has seen people turning away after seeing swarms of non-biting midges.

Some passers-by have resorted wearing masks because those non-biting midges tend to anyhowly fly and would fly into people’s nose and mouth. If my boss were there, he would be full after walking there for two minutes.

According to MP for West Coast GRC Foo Mee Har, she said that “this year’s outbreak is the most severe we have witnessed yet and also persisted for the longest time, impacting the daily lives of our residents. Some have likened it to being in a horror movie. If you visited it’s really scary.”

Erm, it kind of made me want to visit there instead. Anyone game for it?