Tiger Mosquito
an invasive mosquito species with frightening potential.
Asian Tiger Mosquitoes might soon be spreading Dengue Fever and Equine Encephalitis across the USA.
The Asian Tiger Mosquito Aedes albopictus is an invasive species of mosquito. It arrived in the USA in 1985, where it was first discovered breeding in some old car tyres (automobile tires!) in Houston, Texas. It is now spreading across Eastern America. Before the last century it was only found in Asia as its name implies.
The Tiger Mosquito.
The Asian Tiger Mosquito is also known as the Forest Day Mosquito, and it deserves both names. Personally I think of it as the ‘Day Tiger’. Unlike most mosquitoes it flies by day, and has a very rapid bite. When you add to this the fact that it out-competes native mosquitoes and is a ‘puddle breeder’ (meaning that it will breed in any small patches of stagnant water) you have a new species with alarming potential. I will not usually fly more than 200m from ‘home’ – but when it shares that home with you that is no consolation!
Deadly Females?
Like all mosquitoes it is the female who is the blood-sucker, the innocuous males will only suck up nectar. The nasty female likes a few blood meals before she lays her eggs, and her choice of victim is another reason why this species has the potential to become very bad news for humans. She is one of the unusual mosquitoes who will happily suck the blood from a bird at one sitting, then move on to a mammal for the next course.
Eastern Equine Encephalitis.
Eastern Equine Encephalitis is caused by a virus that normally only infects birds, and it is carried from bird to bird by the specialist ‘bird mosquito’ Culistea melanura. This poses no threat for humans. Along comes the Tiger Mosquito, and suddenly there is a new mosquito to transfer the virus from the birds to mammals. EEE is still a very rare disease for humans, but it is so serious that it is considered to be one of the most important mosquito-borne diseases in the USA (CDC). It is usually fatal for horses., but humans cannot catch the disease from horses in any way – horses and humans can only get it from a mosquito that has previously bitten a bird.
Dengue Fever.
Dengue Fever and Dengue Haemorrhagic Fever are virus diseases of humans. The Yellow Fever Mosquito Aedes aegypti is normally responsible for transmitting this nasty virus, but the Tiger Mosquito is now replacing Aedes aegypti in America and also has the potential to spread the disease. Dengue is not yet endemic in the USA, but there are concerns that it soon become so (see here). Dengue ranks second only to malaria among the important mosquito-borne world diseases, and while Americans can only catch it when they travel abroad at the moment, they might soon get it from mosquitoes in their own back yard!
Invasive species.
Aedes albopictus is yet one more example of a creature that man has unwittingly helped move into a new environment, and like many others it has the potential to do enormous harm.
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