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."
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?
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.)
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.
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.
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.
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."
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