gnat

Any of many species of tiny flying insects in the dipteran suborder Nematocera

Entityorganisms known by a particular common nameQ2998701

Also known as flies · gnats

Instance of: organisms known by a particular common name
Subclass of: insect

Overview

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia · Read full article · Text CC BY-SA 4.0

A gnat is any of many species of tiny flying insects in the dipterid suborder Nematocera, especially those in the families Mycetophilidae, Anisopodidae and Sciaridae. Most often they fly in large numbers, called clouds. "Gnat" is a loose descriptive category rather than a phylogenetic or other technical term, so there is no scientific consensus on what constitutes a gnat. Some entomologists consider only non-biting flies to be gnats. Certain universities and institutes also distinguish eye gnats: the Smithsonian Institution describes them as "non-biting flies, no bigger than a few grains of salt, ... attracted to fluids secreted by your eyes".

Overview

All data

12 statements · 25% with external sources · numbers in brackets are citations

Different from: midge nature of statement: uncertainty

On other databases

10 identifiers linking gnat across the web's reference databases

Data quality

statements

25%

externally sourced

Source last edited February 12, 2026. AIDb refreshes this page daily.

Suggest a fact or correction

Links

Use this data

curl https://aidb.si/api/v1/entities/Q2998701

API docs, limits & keys

Cite this page

AIDb. (2026). gnat (Q2998701). Retrieved from https://aidb.si/e/gnat-Q2998701