This garbage article is a great example of why NPR taxpayer funding should never be restored. Ridiculous, unsubstantiated claim here. No evidence whatsoever of any link to climate change is presented. These mosquitoes came via ship and are thus like any other invasive species. Mosquitoes flourish in Siberia, Greenland, Canada, and the northernmost parts of Alaska, all places hundreds of miles north of the Arctic circle.
I’m sorry Iceland. :( Mosquitoes are the absolute worst. I have to cover myself in picaridin anytime I go outside in the summer where I live. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.
When I was a kid in the 1980's I had a classmate from Iceland who was very smug about them not having mosquitoes there.
The Nordic varieties of mosquito are not known to carry any diseases, but the sting itches. Authorities in these countries sometimes poison wetlands where mosquito populations would otherwise grow large enough to become a public nuisance in summer.
Sting ?? They bite, and given a chance will engorge on one's blood. Pretty sure they came after Adam's bite, so I guess as a form of Eden-ruining punishment that makes sense.
Climate has absolutely nothing to do with this discovery. All of the other Northern countries, many of which are colder than Iceland, already have mosquitoes (Greenland has lots of them!). Culiseta annulata is well adapted to cold climate. And it's not even particularly cold in Iceland at this time of year – the mosquitoes may not even have needed to survive a winter yet!
LMK when it gets bad enough that you feel a mosquito biting your leg and slap it, and you end up killing twenty of the little buggers and blood all over your hand.
But seriously, mozzies suck and I hope it's not Iceland's future. On the other side of the world here, in some parts it is getting too hot and dry for much in the way of mozzies. Not sure if that is a good thing either though.
I feel the pain. On a camping trip on the banks of the Mississippi one year, my son and his family slept overnight in his minivan, with just the rear window "wings" cracked open slightly for air. In the morning, we found out that he had battled hundreds of mosquitoes that found their way in during the night. There were blood splats EVERYWHERE on the fabric headliner and walls. Looked like a war zone.
While climate change is a reality, backed by multiple metric tons of hard science, it is unclear if these three mosquitos were genuinely colonizers due to it or if they had simply been transported over by a foreign cargo vessel at the aluminum smelter nearby to where the mosquitos were discovered.
does Iceland have large warm blooded mammals (not humans)? an American hunter once told that that for mosquitos to be a problem for humans, there's needs to be a baseline diet for them of large bloody creatures for them to snack on, to generate large numbers of them. So, in North America this generally would mean that if you have lots of deer in the woods, you'll encounter lots of mosquitos.
since I learned that I've noticed it seems to be true.
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[ 4.2 ms ] story [ 47.7 ms ] threadThe Nordic varieties of mosquito are not known to carry any diseases, but the sting itches. Authorities in these countries sometimes poison wetlands where mosquito populations would otherwise grow large enough to become a public nuisance in summer.
But seriously, mozzies suck and I hope it's not Iceland's future. On the other side of the world here, in some parts it is getting too hot and dry for much in the way of mozzies. Not sure if that is a good thing either though.
That camping trip suuuuuuucked
And before you lose your shit just think about it. Would me bringing a penguin to central America on a plane be evidence of global cooling?
I guess time will tell.
since I learned that I've noticed it seems to be true.