Q: One of my local churches has a square tower with a small spire on each corner of the tower. As I drove by the church one hot summer night, I saw what appeared to be smoke coming out of the tip of each of the spires. This could have been some form of condensation of water vapour caused by an electrostatic process or some Bernoulli effect resulting in localised pressure changes around the stonework, but I would like to know for certain. Can anyone explain what it was?
A: The clouds were almost certainly swarms of male chironomid gnats. There is probably a village pond nearby because chironomids breed in water and, on emerging, the males form dancing, swirling columns above some prominent point while the females seek them out. These swarms look remarkably like smoke, and have caused false fire alerts.
On Lake Victoria, gnats of a related group assemble in huge dense clouds over open water and can be seen from miles away. If the wind blows them ashore it can be mildly unpleasant to be engulfed in a choking, humming cloud, but some local people gather them up and press them into nutritious cakes 鈥� or gnatburgers?
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