Dumb Question: Where Do Mosquitos Go In the Winter?
September 12th, 2007, 5 Comments »
I should know the answer to this, because it seems like a profoundly stupid question. But seriously, how do populations of mosquitos survive winter? Winnipeg is famous for both its bitterly cold winters and flotillas of Cessna-sized mosquitos. How does the latter make it through the former? The Wikipedia entry was no help.
I don’t ever remember seeing any mosquitos in sub-zero temperatures, but maybe I was looking in the wrong spots?
Hang on, I found the answer. In short, they hibernate:
In temperate climates, adult mosquitoes become inactive with the onset of cool weather and enter hibernation to live through the winter. Some kinds of mosquitoes have winter hardy eggs and hibernate as embryos in eggs laid by the last generation of females in late summer. The eggs are usually submerged under ice and hatch in spring when water temperatures rise. Other kinds of mosquitoes overwinter as adult females that mate in the fall, enter hibernation in animal burrows, hollow logs or basements and pass the winter in a state of torpor. In spring, the females emerge from hibernation, blood feed and lay the eggs that produce the next generation of adults
Dumb question resolved. Next?