What are these bugs?

One rainy morning, as I was leaving for work in June of 2003, I noticed something very odd just outside my front door.  At a glance it looked like a bunch of metal filings...but they were moving.  The crawled around some, but more noticeably the seemed to move by "popping" -- hurling themselves up and back down further away than they could crawl to so quickly.

I went back inside to get my video camera.  Click here for video in Windows Media (wmv) format of them alive and moving. Note: Video is large -- 1.5Mbps, 10MB file.  (I apologize for the jitteriness of the video, but it's very hard zoom in to videotape something so small without the slightest shaking also being magnified.)

The pictures below are of them dead, taken 11 hours after spraying them with Raid.  They never returned.  Very weird.  I'd love to know what these are.  If you know, please e-mail me at: Click to contact me.


On a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT note (different location, different year, different bug), here's a bug I found in our back yard that I have no idea what it is.  Do you know?  If so, drop me a quick email at: Click to contact me.