Field-collected females of Culicoides venustus from New York state were tested for oral susceptibility to bluetongue (BT) and epizootic hemorrhagic disease (EHD) viruses. The infection rates obtained for females exposed to a virus meal were low (BTV 0.7% for 1/141, EHDV 2.6% for 1/38), suggesting that the species would not be an efficient vector of these viruses in New York. Females of C. venustus were easy to use in vector competence studies with the same methods used for C. variipennis; they were relatively long-lived and readily fed through a membrane and on embryonating chicken eggs. Three other species of Culicoides did not take a blood meal under the same conditions except for a few females of C. stellifer that were long-lived and assayed negative for infection with BTV.