Rainy and warm weather brought exceptionally large numbers of mosquitos this summer
|
Mosquitos have been exceptionally plentiful around Finland this year. Finnish Lapland, the Oulu Region, eastern parts of Finland, and the Gulf of Finland coast were hardest hit by the bloodsucking pests. There were fewer than usual in the southwest.
Entomologist Juhani Itämies of the University of Oulu attributes the profusion of mosquitos to heavy summer and autumn rains last year, which provided good conditions for mosquito larvae.
He says that during the intense heat wave this summer, large numbers of them matured during a period of a couple of weeks.
Fortunately, the mosquitos are not the aggressive and fast-spreading super-mosquitos which the Swedish media has been writing about recently.
Itämies says that they could spread to the Southwest of Finland, but suspects that the species might not survive the Finnish winter.
Residents of an apartment building in Helsinki were surprised by a plague of mosquitos this summer.
The somewhat aggressive urban mosquitos attacked residents of a single building in the Hermanni district of the Finnish capital on a nightly basis.
Jussi Lempiäinen, who has lived in the building for years, was astounded.
"There shouldn't be any mosquitos in the city. Last summer there were a few, and now they were eating us alive", Lempiäinen said. He had to buy a mosquito net for his bed in order to sleep in peace.
His neighbours used electric fans and electric mosquito repellent devices to deal with the problem.
Lempiäinen suspects that the mosquitos used a puddle in the yard of the building as a breeding ground.
Juhani Itämies suspects that the mosquitos in Hermanni were a special type of city mosquitos which can sometimes be found in old buildings. They breed easily even in sewer lines, from where they can infiltrate apartments through ventilation ducts and floor drains.
Oulu was recently hit by a similar plague. Itämies says that sudden surges in urban mosquito populations are often restricted to individual buildings or city blocks.
Entomologist Juhani Itämies of the University of Oulu attributes the profusion of mosquitos to heavy summer and autumn rains last year, which provided good conditions for mosquito larvae.
He says that during the intense heat wave this summer, large numbers of them matured during a period of a couple of weeks.
Fortunately, the mosquitos are not the aggressive and fast-spreading super-mosquitos which the Swedish media has been writing about recently.
Itämies says that they could spread to the Southwest of Finland, but suspects that the species might not survive the Finnish winter.
Residents of an apartment building in Helsinki were surprised by a plague of mosquitos this summer.
The somewhat aggressive urban mosquitos attacked residents of a single building in the Hermanni district of the Finnish capital on a nightly basis.
Jussi Lempiäinen, who has lived in the building for years, was astounded.
"There shouldn't be any mosquitos in the city. Last summer there were a few, and now they were eating us alive", Lempiäinen said. He had to buy a mosquito net for his bed in order to sleep in peace.
His neighbours used electric fans and electric mosquito repellent devices to deal with the problem.
Lempiäinen suspects that the mosquitos used a puddle in the yard of the building as a breeding ground.
Juhani Itämies suspects that the mosquitos in Hermanni were a special type of city mosquitos which can sometimes be found in old buildings. They breed easily even in sewer lines, from where they can infiltrate apartments through ventilation ducts and floor drains.
Oulu was recently hit by a similar plague. Itämies says that sudden surges in urban mosquito populations are often restricted to individual buildings or city blocks.
Helsingin Sanomat