Causes and effective management of insect bites in the UK.

Insects play an important role in maintaining the world's ecosystem (Zhu and Stiller, 2002) but many of them feed on other animals. Humans are relatively hairless and provide an easy target, especially when partly clothed (Cohn, 2003). Biting insects common to the UK include midges, gnats, mosquitoes, flies, fleas, lice, mites, ticks, and bedbugs (Fig 1).