What kind of insect stung me?

July 16, 2009 9:36 AM

InsectBiteFilter. Help! Last Sunday in Phoenix, Arizona I was chilling outside and then some insect stung/bit/injected my neck. It was not a bee/wasp/spider/ant. It was a tannish brown color and I think it had transparent green wings but I can't recall for sure. It was about half an inch long. I tried to just forget about it but each day the sting gets more painful. I just hope there's no brood in my neck. Anyone know what kind of critter this could be? And, yes, I know I should go to the doctor but I wanted some hive-mind reassurance that I'll be fine. Thank you so much! Dang bugs.
posted by m_lazarus to health & fitness (13 comments total)

You're going to hear this and you already know what the answer is, go to a doctor and you'll likely be better off than you would have been if you keep putting it off until you get the warm fuzzies about going and about being fine.

If it's getting worse, go to the doctor, sounds like a run of the mill mosquito to me, but those things generally don't cause infections...but they also chew on all kinds of things that could be carrying disease, including other humans.

So please, and I mean this in the nicest possible way. Go to the goddamn doctor.
posted by iamabot at 9:51 AM on July 16

Thanks! I will go to the doctor. Still, I am intensely curious what kind of insect this could be. It was definitely not a mosquito.
posted by m_lazarus at 10:07 AM on July 16

Wacky... yellow jacket ?
posted by iamabot at 10:10 AM on July 16

Seconded on go to a doctor... and I'm not a very doctor-happy person. But a bite getting worse and worse is almost certainly bad news -- IA(very very)NAD, but it sounds like it possibly could be infected, and untreated infections can lead to lots of unpleasantness. Can't help you on the ID of the insect, sadly...
posted by brainmouse at 10:12 AM on July 16

Possibly a horsefly? Those bites STING.

But yes, get to a doctor. You need this checked out. I only have GCSE Biology.
posted by mippy at 10:16 AM on July 16

Deerfly?

Those suck as much as a horsefly and are tan in color. And if it is getting worse, the doctor should be in order.
posted by chiefthe at 10:33 AM on July 16

Did it look anything like this? I got bit by one of those near Mono Lake (Calif) - so also a desert climate. I never did find out what exactly it was though the deer fly is a possibility. It hurt a lot when it happened but didn't persist more than a day.
posted by otherwordlyglow at 10:57 AM on July 16 [1 favorite]

I'd put my money on a horse/deer fly. When they bite me, it hurts and get swollen over a course of a few days.
posted by Foam Pants at 12:31 PM on July 16

Note that if the bite is red, swollen, your skin feels hot to the touch, and the red/swollen/hot area is getting larger and larger fairly quickly, you could have cellulitis and should get to the doctor asap and get some antibiotics.
posted by gudrun at 1:12 PM on July 16

Not safe for the squeamish filter:

Don't screw around with an insect bite: Look what happened to me from a simple spider bite.
posted by pjern at 1:59 PM on July 16 [5 favorites]

pjern, that bite reaction was insane. Did they ever determine what kind of spider it was, or what exactly caused it to be so bad?
posted by Allenthar at 1:47 PM on July 17

It was either a black widow, or more likely a brown recluse. What made it bad was peptostreptococcus and something else I can't remember.
posted by pjern at 12:00 AM on July 18

You're all looking for the wrong reason why it was so bad. The reason it was so bad is that when you're a MeFite, injuries are inversely proportional to your awesomeness.

Now, this is pjern we're talking about, so it had to be pretty damn bad.
posted by scrump at 8:35 AM on August 6