It seemed unbelievable that a tiny insect bite could leave me like this.

For such a tiny insect (5mm-20mm), they are long-lived, surviving for up to eight years in laboratories.

The waste of it all was ferocious: every spoonful of food, every broken night, every pulled-up sock and new word taught - gone, in a second, because of one, tiny insect.

This tiny insect wreaks havoc in two simple ways.

Vernal migrations feature everything from fish and birds to big, shaggy mammals and tiny insects.