If you’re seeing ‘white flakes’ floating around - those are actually bugs

JACKSON, Miss. (WLBT/Gray News) - If you have noticed what looks like “white flakes” flying through the air recently, those are actually bugs

Brady Dunaway, a Heritage Program Ecologist at the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science, explained what the insects are and what they are doing.

“This is called the Asian hackberry aphid or the woolly hackberry aphid,” Dunaway said.

Dunaway said the reason we are seeing so many of them is because it is mating season.

“What you see are the males that are flying around, and they’re very small. They’re very easily carried on a breeze. They drift around, so that’s why it sort of has this illusion. They’re not flying in the way that you see, like a dragonfly darting about, but you do have them sort of drifting on the wind and just sort of landing anywhere and everywhere,” Dunaway said.

The aphids do not bite, but can be a nuisance.

“Aphids produce a byproduct from feeding. It’s their excrement and it’s called honeydew,” Dunaway said.

In a humid environment, the excrement can grow bacteria and mold.

Dunaway explained why we do not always notice the aphids floating in the air.

“From year to year, you can have what are like boom and bust years, so one year you may have conditions and a climate, and the trees may do really well, and it produces a bumper crop of these aphids. And in those years, that’s when you get a really big show of these aphids landing everywhere and everybody notices them and talks about them,” Dunaway said.

The excrement can be unsightly on trees and other surfaces it lands on, but it does not leave permanent damage.

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