Noticing more mosquitoes? It could be because of the heat wave

If you feel like there are more mosquitoes this year, you might be partially right.

Traps in Brant County and Windsor-Essex have been showing a larger number of mosquitoes than usual, said Fiona Hunter, a professor at Brock University who is widely considered the foremost authority on mosquitoes in Ontario.

The catch is — they're species that would usually hatch later in the season.

"A lot of the spring species that come out were laid as eggs last year, and larvae grow depending on the temperature. Normally that takes a while but the huge heat wave not too long ago could've sped up development," said Hunter.

One of the most common spring mosquitoes are Aedas vexens, known more commonly as floodwater mosquitoes.

While they are vicious biters, they are mostly just a nuisance and don't carry diseases, Hunter said. 

"You'll be pestered but you're not going to get sick," she said.

Accurate data from London won't be released until the health unit sends its traps to her lab next week to be analyzed.

Climate change means more bugs

With temperature changes and other "catastrophic ecological events," more mosquitos earlier could become the norm, said Jeremy McNeil, a professor of chemical ecology at Western University.

"I would argue that the heat wave we had a few days ago, where it was 31 or 32 degrees, that was a catastrophic event from an ecological point of view," said McNeil.

"Hot and rainy is almost the ideal for mosquitoes. There's going to be lots of places for the females to lay their eggs and because it's warm, the developmental time will be faster, so they will emerge earlier and they could get extra generations in," he said.

While birds that eat insects might be missing the early flush of extra mosquitoes, there will be a feast coming later during the summer months.

"A lot of animals prey on them. They'll make up for it by feeding on other species that aren't the spring species. Different mosquitoes come out at different times during the year," McNeil said.

Wear light colours

One species, Ochleratus japonicus, better known as the Asian bush mosquito, is native to South Korea and Japan and wasn't seen in Canada until 2001.

Now Hunter said it's the most commonly collected container-breeding mosquito in the province.

"They are aggressive biters so when people say 'Oh, when I was growing up, the mosquitoes weren't so bad,' it's that they really didn't encounter aggressive biters as often as we do now," said Hunter.

As for the current mosquitoes, she suggests insect repellant and wearing light colours.

"They are more attracted to darker colours. I wear light khaki or white."