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It seems to be a flying insect about 2-3mm in length. It also doesn't seem like it's very good at flying. They seem to crawl around my desk until I try to hit them, which is when they'll start flying.

Location: Denver, Colorado, USA

They seem to come out more at night.

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  • $\begingroup$ Can you get a better image? Also, a description of the environment? $\endgroup$
    – arboviral
    Commented Jul 27, 2017 at 9:35
  • $\begingroup$ @arboviral that's about the best pic I can take with my iPhone, sorry :( the environment is my computer desk, it's pretty bright as I have a few monitors that are on all the time $\endgroup$
    – David Xu
    Commented Jul 27, 2017 at 9:37
  • $\begingroup$ Could you get one with the wings in focus? Without some idea of wing patterns and venation there will be serious limitations on what we can do, I'm afraid. $\endgroup$
    – arboviral
    Commented Jul 27, 2017 at 10:26
  • $\begingroup$ @arboviral I added another picture with the wings spread. Hopefully that helps? :) $\endgroup$
    – David Xu
    Commented Jul 28, 2017 at 4:29
  • $\begingroup$ A little - but unfortunately probably not enough, I'm afraid! Based on the activity period, size and photos I had been wondering if it was a biting midge (Diptera: Ceratopogonidae) of some sort - take a look at some sample photos here: padil.gov.au/maf-border/pest/main/140521/49023 - but I'm now much less confident about that; the head looks too big and I can't see the distinctive antennae. $\endgroup$
    – arboviral
    Commented Jul 28, 2017 at 8:12

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These are Scuttle Flies (Order Diptera, Family Phoridae) (the wing venation, best seen on the lower left individual of the top photograph, is characteristic); the group has several hundred species in America north of Mexico. So far as I am aware, the generic key in Manual of Nearctic Diptera, Volume 2 (available online here, pages 25 to 48) will still yield useful results, but cannot be used on these photographs. The 30 pages in bugguide.net's gallery (starting here) eliminate a few of these, but not nearly enough to go further on the evidence we have.

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