NEWS

It's not just you: There are more mosquitoes lately

Mike Kilen
mkilen@dmreg.com

The mosquitoes are terrible.

Brendan Dunphy knows enough about mosquitoes and Iowans' hatred of them to realize that where any two Iowans gather and hear a buzz, it's suddenly a bloody invasion.

"I've known of picnics shut down because of three or four bug bites," said Dunphy.

Truth is, it's too early to tell how terrible they will be this summer, said the Iowa State University entomologist. He said it's like asking a climatologist to predict the entire summer's weather. It can change from week to week, although mosquitoes have picked up in numbers recently as temperatures have risen.

In Des Moines, the number of mosquitoes caught in traps set by the city has increased by the day over the past month, reaching 900 this week. (In really bad flood years, city traps might capture 3,000.) Ames has experienced the first week of mosquito season with trap counts in the hundreds.

Mosquitoes probed their little proboscises (the things that stick you) in increasing numbers last summer, happy to be over the droughts of prior summers. They like the still pools left by rain and warm temperatures.

Mosquitoes as creative inspiration? Yes.

So let's consider our universal skeeter antagonism.

Say you are a young boy in Burt, Ia., trying to shoot hoops, as Nathan Stumme was several years ago. The skeeters were attacking him. His mom, Jean, yelled out for him to come in. Nathan was 5. He came in, mad. He started listing the things that mosquitoes ruin and dreamed up a fantasy world — a world without mosquitoes.

His mom helped him jot down the ideas: A young boy could lie under the stars and look at the Big Dipper; no one would tell you not to scratch your mosquito bites even though they itch; cats wouldn't go crazy because there was a mosquito on the ceiling they couldn't reach; people wouldn't say, "Shut the door, you're letting the skeeters in."

Over the years, the family refined the list, and it was so much fun that 13 years later Nathan produced a children's book, "Life Without Mosquitoes," that was published in December.

He read it to school groups and even adults, and they all chimed in, dreaming up the bliss of life without the buggers.

"They are annoying to everyone in Iowa," said Stumme, a recent high school graduate. "It's early, but I've already noticed them. Last night, I had a bonfire, and they are a real nuisance."

Who has the worst mosquito swarms?

The obvious question to scientists, then: Why not kill them all?

"First of all, good luck," said Dunphy, who also has written a book, published by Discovery in April, called "Bugopedia." "The highest densities are in the northern tundra where gigantic sections of snow melt pools, attracting swarms of millions of mosquitoes. That can be hell on earth.

"You could also ask that same question about any species on Earth. But everything is vital to the food web. There are plenty of things that they eat and that eat them, like dragonflies, bats and birds."

There are more than 3,000 species of mosquitoes in the world, but only a handful cause up to a million deaths around the world every year, spreading diseases such as malaria and yellow fever.

Iowa is lucky in this case to have cold winters where most of those species can't live, although the major one that causes some cases of West Nile virus later in the summer, the culex pipiens, does live here, he said.

The most common mosquito in Iowa is the aedes vexans. These floodwater mosquitoes are pesky and numerous, and can lay eggs several times. All it takes is a little moisture to activate the process, and they start coming out in clouds, looking to feed on blood from creatures they can sense are emitting carbon dioxide and are in motion.

Here's a fun myth buster: Minnesotans brag of having bigger skeeters. Not true, Dunphy says. They simply have more lakes with standing water that can create larger numbers of them.

Sprays, pellets and long-sleeve shirts: How to fight off the skeeters

Many Iowa cities go on the attack against them. The city of Des Moines' mosquito hot line lights up this time of year.

Des Moines and West Des Moines officials say they hire a company for an aerial assault, using a chopper to drop pellets and kill the larvae. That was done recently.

If a mosquito trap in Des Moines gathers 1,250 in a week, the city sprays the insecticide Permethrin directly on flying mosquitoes at dusk and into the early morning hours, said Jim Nelson, who heads the mosquito abatement program. So far, he has gathered 900 in a week.

South of Grand neighborhoods are typically the worst and where the city gets the most complaints. But the city will skip entire blocks if one person calls in and asks it not to spray.

In West Des Moines, officials are sensitive to the issue of chemical sprays, said Ron Weise, in nuisance abatement. He said the city will only spray before the Memorial Day, Fourth of July and Labor Day holidays, typically around parks and gathering spaces.

He gives callers the standard advice: Spray on some bug spray with DEET and wear long-sleeve shirts.

A little tolerance and understanding might not hurt, either, for those who want to bug out on the picnic because of skeeters. Some people's skin chemistry is just more susceptible to an attack, experts say, and their immune systems may react more to a bite.

Mosquito myths

Minnesota has bigger mosquitoes than Iowa.

Not true, says Iowa State University entomologist Brendan Dunphy. They simply have more lakes with standing water that can create larger numbers of them.

Mosquitoes are worse than ever.

It may seem like it. But mosquitoes have always been abundant, Dunphy says. Early Greeks wrote about them, and North American settlers faced such thick swarms it repelled them. In Iowa, in fact, the reverse may be true. Much of the prime mosquito habitat of wetlands has been drained from the landscape.

Eating garlic will keep mosquitoes away.

It could keep a lot of people away, but not mosquitoes, Dunphy says. The mosquito distaste or attraction to you is more likely based on your body chemistry.

Fabric softeners will repel mosquitoes.

Tying a strip of Bounce fabric softener through a belt loop or rubbing it on you won't repel mosquitoes, according to Uli Bernier, a research chemist in the Mosquito and Fly Research Unit of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Mad about mosquitoes?

Des Moines residents can call the city's Mosquito Hotline at 248-6099 if they think an area needs spraying or to find out where future sprayings will occur. For more information, go to www.dmgov.org/departments/communitydevelopment/pages/mosquito.aspx