After the flood come the flood-borne creatures.
Unusually large mosquitoes that hatched in the stagnant water left over from Hurricane Florence are swarming the Carolinas. The mosquitoes are of the species Psorophora ciliata, commonly known as “gallinippers,” and they can bite through one or two layers of cotton “pretty easily,” Michael Reiskind, an entomologist at North Carolina State University, told USA Today.
North Carolina resident Cassie Rulene Vadovsky posted a video to Facebook of gallinippers, which can be up to three times larger than average mosquitos, swarming outside a car. A child in the background assumes they’re wasps.
“Why are you doing that—taking pictures of the wasps?” the child asks. The person filming replies, “They’re not wasps, baby, they’re mosquitoes.”
Found in the eastern US, gallinippers tend to show up after heavy rainfall, and they’re particularly notorious in sodden states like Florida. The females lay eggs in soil near bodies of water that regularly flood, and the eggs can wait years for flood waters to prompt them to hatch.
Thanks to Hurricane Florence, mosquito nests across large parts of the Carolinas all flooded at once, prompting a simultaneous hatching of nests that otherwise might have have lain dormant for years.
North Carolina’s governor has ordered $4 million in mosquito eradication efforts for particularly soggy counties in the state, and the state’s health department released a list of mosquito tips for residents, noting that although most of the mosquitoes are just nuisances and not dangerous, “some can carry viruses that may cause illnesses such as La Crosse encephalitis, West Nile virus and eastern equine encephalitis.”
“People shouldn’t worry too much, a big mosquito is no more dangerous than a little one,” Reiskind told USA Today. But encountering one might be a different kind of experience. Doug Carlson, a mosquito control director in Florida, told local station WPTV in 2013 that it “can feel like a small bird has landed on you.”