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Will the Midwest Flooding Affect Kentucky Mosquitoes?

June 25, 2008

The flooding to the northwest of Kentucky will have relatively little impact on mosquitoes here.  The mosquitoes that benefit from the flooding don’t migrate and relatively few transmit human diseases.

If there is a big disease outbreak in Kentucky this year, it is not likely to be due to the early season flooding.

2008 Mosquito Season is Early

April 25, 2008

By late April, Culex females were feeding throughout the western 2/3 of the state.  These mosquitoes prefer birds which are plentiful now so they should pose no problem.

           Aedes mosquitoes, the most common human biters in Kentucky, began flying in the Purchase Area in mid-April and will be present in Lexington by May 1.  However, the drought was especially hard on these mosquitoes last year and few survived; their numbers will remain low until July.

           Asian bush mosquitoes (Ochlerotatus japonicas) have already been collected as far north as the Ohio River at Maysville.  This is at least a month earlier than we have found this species in the past.

 

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