Week 9: Dangerous Mosquitos

Turkeys at a trap site in Billerica, MA

Vectors of West Nile Virus

West Nile Virus is primarily spread by mosquitos in the Culex genus. We mostly find these mosquitos in our Gravid traps, and we more commonly find it in areas that are relatively more urban (e.g. Worcester or Lowell). This week, we got news of our first positive mosquitos of the season. Three mosquitos carrying West Nile Virus were found from towns within our project; one in Natick, one in Blackstone, and one in Clinton. This means that we will set extra traps and do extra spraying at the sites that tested positive. None of these sites were within my route, which means that for now my schedule is unaffected. However, it is likely that as the summer continues, we will get at least a handful more positive mosquitos.

Aedes Albopictus (Asian Tiger Mosquito) 

On Friday afternoon, Aoife, Emily the lab technician/trapper, Dan the etymologist and I were all identifying mosquitos. This is pretty standard, I often have time on Fridays to spend my entire afternoon helping finish the weeks mosquitos. We had already been finding a lot of unusual mosquitos that day, but things were starting to settle into their regular rhythm. Until Emily goes "Daaaaaaaaaaan...?" She had realized the mosquito she was looking at was not an Aedes Japonicus in really good condition, and in fact it looked awfully familiar. She handed it to Dan, who looked down in his palm, and went "Oh, shit." The shiny silver scales were a tell-tale giveaway. It was an Aedes Albopictus. He didn't even have to look under the microscope. These mosquitos can carry West Nile, EEE, Malaria, Dengue, Zika, Chikunguya and many other mosquito borne illnesses. It is a huge deal that we found one. It felt like the sky was falling inside our little lab, the way Emily and Dan were reacting to this mosquito. The trap site in Blackstone, MA where this Albopictus came from will likely have heavy trapping and spraying for the foreseeable future.

This week is likely a turning point in the summer. Now that we have started extra trapping due to positive mosquitos, we likely won't stop until trapping season is over.