Midges

A name given to any of various kinds of small biting fly, commonly seen in milling swarms, especially in low-lying regions and around lakes and marshland. They were described as being found across Middle-earth, but most notably around the great stretch of wetland eastward of Bree, where they swarmed so thickly that this area was known as the Midgewater Marshes.

There were also midges living in Mordor in the vales on the eastern side of Ephel Dúath, the Mountains of Shadow. There they were recorded as swarming over the thickets of briar that filled the shadowed inner valley below the mountains. There were also flies of a larger kind in this region, and under the influence of the Dark Lord, those flies were marked with a red eye-shaped pattern. Whether the midges of Mordor were also marked with a tiny Red Eye is a question that is left unaddressed.