Iceland, as its name suggests, is a country covered in snow and cold weather. Therefore, it is one of the places in the world where you don't have to worry about being bitten by mosquitoes while sleeping. But for the first time in human history, mosquitoes have been found in Iceland this week.
The mosquitoes were discovered by Björn Hjaltason on October 16 while he was looking for butterflies. Over the course of three days, three were successfully caught, two of them females and one male. They are from the Culiseta annulata mosquito species that can survive the winter.
With this discovery, Antarctica is the only place on earth where mosquitoes have never been found. Because he had never seen mosquitoes, Hjaltason initially recalled that he had caught a species of fly that had never been seen before.
This is seen as an early warning that Iceland is now "warm enough" due to global warming to support mosquito life. However, it is still too early to say that mosquitoes will be able to survive and breed continuously in Iceland. Scientists' initial theory was that these mosquitoes laid eggs on cargo ships and then flew to Iceland.
