Scotland suddenly has a lot of mosquitoes | Hacker News Reader

Scotland suddenly has a lot of mosquitoes

popsci.com

20 pointsgeox40 comments

The headline is wrong. That's not what the article says at all.

A more accurate summary is "Scotland has always had mosquitoes and no one paid much attention to them. We went looking for Scottish mosquitoes recently, and we found more than we expected, but we can't quantify what we expected because no one ever paid attention, so we don't really know what that means. But now we're paying closer attention to mosquitoes in Scotland because of climate change and we'll know some day whether there's anything changing with Scottish mosquitoes."

Scot here, can confirm these tiny, winged devils have always been around to some extent.

Still, I prefer them to midges :-/

We had a aircraft called a Mosquito that was given a status of two kills if brought down by Axis forces during WW2 due to being a major pest.

We need to field one called a Midge. It would be a drone and there would be millions of them.

There is the midget mustang. It's an aerobatic aircraft, so not quite fit for an airforce: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mustang_Aeronautics_Midget_Mus...

Midget means small and a midget mustang is a small horse! Midge should mean "daemon insect".

The sodding things (Scottish Highland midge) really are quite unpleasant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highland_midge

Geez, yes, we only have mosquitos and I didn't think there's a worse thing :/

Though I encountered them only in quantity in Milford Sound in New Zealand. I was in Scotland for three months (Edinburgh) and did not encounter them. Have they spread?

You only see them during summer... which usually lasts around 8 days ;)

Hang on.. they're not the same thing?!

No, see Gerdesj's sibling comment, it's the perfect description! (midges are smaller, but you get clouds of them!)

No. Midges are smaller than fruit flies.

Someone who has never been in Scotland, but hates mosquitoes... why wouldn't Scotland be chock full of them?

Wet weather and very warm for its latitude.

I was there 20 years back and did not notice them. I think you have to be heavy in the marshlands to notice.

Warm for its latitude of >55°? We’re not living in greenhouse Earth yet. Wait a few decades.

Lol, I didn't say it's warm. I said its warmer than the alternatives. What is warmer than Scotland and north of 55?

Canada is essentially uninhabited north of 55 (Edmonton is 53). Im not sure there trees north of Edmonton.

Moscow is on 55 and it snowed two days ago.

Yeah, Alaska famously has hordes of mosquitoes…

Siberia is infamous for them too.

No one noticed them because they were busy getting nuked by the midges.

HN is the only website that I know where reading the comments before the linked article is a smart choice.

Scotland has indeed always had mosquitoes, and it is a thing that they're unbearable in summer:

https://www.onlandscape.co.uk/2016/07/dreaded-scottish-midge...

This also shows that population testing has been a thing for a while.

Seems to be an article about midges, which are not mosquitoes.

Midges aren't mosquitoes.

Germany as well, this year there are huge swarms of mosquitos everywhere on the hiking trails. In the past you could find them deep inside forests, now they are even around the fields in broad daylight. It's unprecedented.

Not sure what is going on, maybe they all hatched before their predators came around. Haven't seen one dragonfly yet.

"Germany as well, this year there are huge swarms of mosquitos everywhere on the hiking trails."

Certainly not all of germany.

But it was a very warm and wet spring, followed by a cold snap that should have killed plenty, unless you live where it was too warm for the cold to be effective.

But I doubt we have more mosquitos in general now (and the article does not say scotland has more btw.)

I hiked the length of Scotland north/south about 10 years ago and I can confirm back then that there were approximately a shitton of mosquitos.

Midges are not mosquitos though. I've lived there and saw clouds of midges but mosquitoes are rare.

Yep, lived for in Scotland over 50 years. The mosquito with its high pitched whine (so far for me) is rare, whereas the silent midge is hard to avoid in the summer/autumn.

> approximately a shitton of mosquitos

Is that a metric or imperial shitton?

“Scotland, a country whose primary flying irritant has been the humble midge”

Speaking as a long term victim, there’s nothing humble about the Scottish Midge.

Quite capable of driving its victim back indoors with an extensive set of itchy bite marks (which develop over the next few hours.

We don’t need the mosquitoe as well.

"Mosquitos have been present in Scotland for millennia" ... now let's bring in climate change for click bait.

Don't do what @BillGates push, sterilized mosquitoes. (sorry Bill) Rather accommodate and breed dragonflies instead. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Kx2im0ceCc

We have roughly the same climate in Sweden where the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency sprays lakes with Bacillus thuringiensis israelensis (Bti) to stop them.

The product is VectoBac® Granules from Valent BioSciences, it's super effective.

Unfortunately not available at the supermarket :)

> not available at the supermarket

It's not?

Here in the US, hardware stores sell Mosquito Dunks[1] or Mosquito Bits[2], which seems to have the same stuff in it.

---

[1] https://summitchemical.com/products/mosquito-dunks/

[2] https://summitchemical.com/products/mosquito-bits/

Oh, where and why is that used?

The Marin/Sonoma Mosquito & Vector Control District uses BT or at least it did the last time I checked (about 12 years ago).

Where?

> in Sweden

Why?

> to stop them. It’s super effective.

Where in Sweden?

Depends on where people complain enough to convince the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency to deploy it.

There are many locations where this is used though (especially towards the north), some rainy summers people are unable to go about their daily lives due to the extreme nuisance.

Huh. I thought mosquitos aren’t really a thing in the UK? I certainly haven’t experienced as many as I have living in Poland.

Yeah, I was also surprised: did you see the photo from Alaska by a National Geographic photographer. His bare feet were fully covered by mosquitos.

Apparently, it's not the cold overall climate they need. They only need steady water and at least some warmth over the year.

It's been a rainy spring, so lots of puddles, which I would guess provides more breeding options.

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