But if you’re somewhere with sandy shores, such as East Coast Park, Coney Island or Chek Jawa – and can’t spot the insect anywhere, it might have been a sandfly instead. “Sandfly” is a name that is ambiguously given to many species of biting insects that is not a mosquito, according to The Entomologist Lounge. “Here in Singapore, sandflies are known to bite humans at damp, sandy coastlines; hence its name,” wrote the website. To further add to the confusion, “some bites from Singapore’s beaches may actually come from biting midges (different from the non-biting midges that converge at reservoirs)”, said Dr Scott Joel Heng, a general practitioner with Healthway Medical. Like mosquitoes, some sandfly species can carry disease.