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Revised, Oct. 21, 2025 at 1:17 pm ET: Live Science has discovered that Iceland isn’t devoid of mosquitoes presently. Three mosquitoes — a pair of females and a single male — appeared inside the backyard of a private home between Oct. 16 and Oct. 18 within the Kjósarhreppur district (otherwise called Kjós), based on the Iceland Monitor. Within a Facebook post in the group Skordýr á Íslandi (“Insects in Iceland”), the individual who made the discovery, Björn Hjaltason, stated “I could recognize at once that this was some thing I’d never seen before.”
Matthías Alfreðsson, an insect specialist at the Icelandic Institute of Natural History, validated that the mosquitoes are part of the Culiseta annulata species, the Iceland Monitor mentioned.
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Mosquitoes sting people in nearly every nation across the world. However, are there any countries that lack this blood-draining bug?
The answer is “yes,” there’s just one country devoid of mosquitoes: Iceland. While its neighbors — together with Norway, Scotland plus Greenland — host various mosquito forms, Iceland continues to be mosquito-free. (Of note, Antarctica is additionally mosquito-free, though the south continent is not really a nation.)
Therefore exactly how is it feasible for Iceland to get absolutely no mosquitoes?
Researchers have several ideas. A single thought is the fact that mosquitoes just have not managed to get to Iceland just yet. The island country is separated from its own neighbors simply by hundreds of miles of ocean, producing a natural obstacle that makes it tricky for mosquitoes to reach by air.
However mosquitoes do get transferred on planes. Gísli Már Gíslason, a professor emeritus of limnology (the research regarding lakes and clean water) at the University of Iceland, verified this specific after getting a mosquito on a journey through Greenland to Iceland. Furthermore, mosquitoes are designed for surviving for hours on aircraft landing gear, possibly even inside freezing temperature ranges, he explained inside an interview with Reykavík Grapevine, an English-language publication within Iceland, in 2017.
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So in the event that mosquitoes have arrived, precisely why have not they set up populations?
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Gíslason detailed which a deficiency of appropriate reproduction environments is improbable. Iceland provides lots of ponds along with marshes in close proximity to its air terminals — excellent spots for mosquitoes to set ovum. Alternatively, probably the most probable clarification is Iceland’s intense climate.
A mosquito’s existence cycle contains four stages: ovum, larva, pupa (just like a caterpillar chrysalis) plus adult. Adult mosquitoes lay their ovum inside water. These types of ovum hatch in to larvae, which develop inside pupae. A grownup mosquito after that emerges from the pupa.
Robert Jones, an insect biologist and assistant professor at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, informed Live Science that mosquito larvae demand unfrozen liquid water for you to develop. Inside extremely cold locations just like the Canadian Arctic, several mosquito kinds survive by going into dormancy inside the ovum phase, exactly where they might endure months regarding frozen water.
“Inside warmer areas, such as areas of Central Europe, mosquitoes could endure the winter as ovum or larvae inside comparatively sheltered bodies involving water that do not freeze, or perhaps as adults concealed inside burrows and also other protected sites,” he said.
While Iceland could get mosquitoes in the foreseeable future because of climate change, it is improbable that disease-bringing mosquitoes inside Aedes genus may sustain a population there, as these mosquitoes demand tropical or subtropical climates.
Iceland’s weather is situated in between: Long winters along with recurrent freeze-thaw cycles inside autumn and spring trigger water physiques in order to freeze, melt and refreeze repeatedly. “These cycles disrupt growth and eradicate mosquito ovum and larvae before they might emerge as adults, rendering it more difficult for populations to ascertain,” Jones stated.
Even though Iceland’s geothermal pools remain unfrozen throughout winter, their temps could be too warm with regard to larvae of any mosquito species tailored to higher latitudes. “In addition, the chemical makeup of geothermal waters will be unlikely to be appropriate for mosquito development,” he stated.
Nevertheless, with climate change, Iceland’s mosquito-free position probably won’t last for good. Jones observed that warmer springs and autumns may create longer periods of unfrozen standing water, permitting mosquitoes to ascertain long lasting populations.
Immo Hansen, a professor of biology at New Mexico State University, concurs. “We’re at the moment observing tropical mosquitoes expanding their range north within the United States,” he or she told Live Science, to a great extent simply because that region’s winters are warming.
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In case mosquitoes at some point spread to Iceland, it wouldn’t be the first time a mosquito-free area disappeared. Hawaii, the most separated archipelago across the world, was mosquito-free until 1826, when European and American ships inadvertently introduced them. Due to Hawaii’s positive climate, mosquitoes grew and spread swiftly throughout the islands. From the time then, climate change has pushed mosquitoes into Hawaii’s higher-elevation forests that were once too cool for them to endure.
Inspite of the potential for mosquitoes to reach Iceland, the danger of disease-bringing types — just like those inside the Aedes genus, which are recognized to transmit ailments like dengue and chikungunya — starting there continues to be minimal due to the fact these insects require tropical and subtropical climates in order to endure, Jones stated. Although Southern Europe encounters improved hazards of these outbreaks because of climate change and contemporary transport, “modeling studies advise that Northern Europe will stay largely unsuitable for dengue transmission possibly even by 2080,” he stated.
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Clarissa BrincatLive Science Contributor
Clarissa Brincat is a freelance author focusing on health and medical research. After completing an MSc within chemistry, she understood she’d instead write about science compared to undertake it. She learned how to edit scientific papers within a stint as a chemistry copyeditor, prior to shifting on to a medical writer role at a healthcare firm. Writing for medical doctors and experts has its incentives, however Clarissa wished to communicate with a wider audience, which obviously led her to freelance health and science writing. Her work has also appeared in Medscape, HealthCentral plus Medical News Today.
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An approaching ‘insect apocalypse’ could imperil international food provisions. Might we be able to halt it just before it is too late?
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Precisely why do European towns feature more gentle winters compared to those throughout North America, regardless of being at the equivalent latitude?
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