If you can’t stand the mosquitoise With their annoying hums and stings during the summer season there is a destination in which they are not present: theIceland. The island in the heart of the north of the Atlantic Ocean is today the only country in the world, together with Antarctica, where there are no mosquitoes. There are no specific studies, but the explanations of this particular “absence” are linked to details climatic conditions of Iceland which, added to the peculiar volcanic composition of the soil and to the isolated position, make it inhospitable to these insects that so far have proved to be able to survive in any other part of the planet and which are among the most dangerous for man because vectors of different diseases. But it’s not all roses and flowers: Iceland still hosts other species of suckish flying insects, and the climate change He risks modifying his temperatures, making them more favorable to mosquitoes.
Iceland isolation explains why there are no mosquitoes
Belonging to the culcid family and widespread all over the world, they exist beyond 3600 species of mosquitoes. Of these, over 200 feed on human blood, used by mosquito females to feed the larvae (the males of all species, unless very rare exceptions, do not feed on blood but to nectar e Lymph of plants), carrying viruses, bacteria and parasites capable of infecting human beings. They are in fact responsible for about 700 million infections and from 700 thousand to 1 million deaths per year: it is themost dangerous animal for man.
However, this does not seem to be interested in Iceland and the geographical position of the island could be a reason. Iceland is in fact a lot isolated – It is located 900 km from Scotland and Norway, the two closer places where there are mosquitoes. This makes the arrival of these animals from other places Very difficult, but not impossible.
In 1986, a professor of the University of Iceland, Gísli Már Gíslason, succeeded in fact capture a specimen belonging to the species Aedes Nigripes On board a plane from Greenland, Keflavik airport. After chasing it for the cabin, the professor delivered the specimen captured to the Institute of Natural History of Reykjavik, where it is kept in an alcohol jar: it is, nowadays, of theThe only mosquito present on Icelandic soil. This kind of mosquito is the best adapted to cold climates, yet even if it had arrived in Iceland in the past, it is not apparently managed to take root.
Iceland has unfavorable climatic and environmental conditions for mosquitoes
The other reason why Iceland is free of mosquitoes could be his climateas Professor Gíslason himself hypothesized. Even if most species prefer hot climates, the Freddo It is not necessarily a deterrent for mosquitoes: different species, like the aforementioned Aedes Nigripessurvive in equally cold countries such as Greenland and Scandinavia. What they need, however, is stability: The pupa of the mosquito goes into hibernation under the ice during the winter, and disgusts itself as soon as the ice resumes in the spring. But the Icelandic winters are very variablewith sudden variations in the temperature within a few hours and frequent cycles of dissolution and cooling: a sudden rising in the middle of the winter would disagree the life cycle of these insects.
There volcanic composition of Icelandic soil makes the rest: in fact, the mosquitoes need Stagnant water pools To lay their eggs, but despite being Iceland full of lakes, their peculiar composition, influenced by the volcanic soil, is not indicated to the survival of these animals.
No mosquitoes, but other parasitic insects
Despite the absence of mosquitoes, Iceland is not a paradise at all for those who detest insects: the species that survive on the island are many, and among these there are also other succhiesangue parasites, i Midges (Ceratopogonidi). Distant relatives of mosquitoes, with which they can be easily confused, these small insects move in shamans and also feed on human blood. They seem to tolerate the conditions of the island without problems, indeed they pass it so well that a lake in Northern Iceland, the Mývatn, takes its name (Mý, “Midge” and Vatn, “Lake”) for theirs massive presence during the summer.
If there are no mosquitoes in Iceland, therefore, there are other harassing insects that occupy its ecological niche. Furthermore, climate change is also altering this place so famous for the cold: according to the reports of the Icelandic Met Office, the temperatures on the rise They are causing the appearance of new species of insects that were previously unable to tolerate the Icelandic climate. Among these, in the future there may be mosquitoes.
