Kyle Winkelmann has learned the past couple of weeks that if he’s going to get into the cab of his tractor, he had better do it in a hurry.

“I run really fast and get in quick, or else they’ll get in with you,” said Winkelmann, who farms near Tallula, Ill., about 15 miles northwest of Springfield.

They, in this case, are buffalo gnats, a type of black fly that has hatched out in unusually large numbers the past couple of weeks in west-central Illinois.

The gnats, the females anyway, bite. They’re parasites, spending most of their roughly three weeks of life looking for blood to provide the protein needed to lay eggs. And their saliva causes an allergic reaction, leaving big, red, itchy welts on people and animals