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Fierce Asian tiger mosquito begins biting in New Jersey

Mike Gallagher

Jun 25, 2013 - 08:38

Jun 25, 2013 - 08:43

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Fierce Asian tiger mosquito begins biting in New Jersey

Prolific: This type of mosquito bites throughout the day

Just as people in New Jersey get over the recent invasion of cicadas, there's a new scourge in town.

It's the Asian tiger mosquito, an elegant little bug that looks like it's dressed for an evening out, but will eat you alive, figuratively speaking, even at midday.

More common biters, like the ubiquitous Vexan mosquito, are much more predictable. But the Asian tiger is described as 'extremely aggressive' and an 'obnoxious nuisance mosquito.'

More common mosquitos come out at dusk, suck your blood for a while, make it impossible to get to sleep with their infeal whine, and sometimes gives you a fleeting moment of intense, murderous pleasure when you squished one in mid-bite.

Then they generally leave you alone until the next evening.

The Asian tiger mosquito, known more properly as Aedes albopictus, is named for its distinctive black-and-white striped legs and body markings.

And this species has no compunction about attacking when you least expect it, zooming in for a meal as you get into the car for your moing commute, for example.

'The Asian tiger mosquito is an extremely aggressive insect that has largely supplanted japonicus since 2008, especially in urban and suburban areas,' Eric Green, the mosquito control officer for Passaic County, told The Record.

The japonicus mosquito, he explained, is an insect that feeds primarily on birds and is known to spread disease among its hosts.

The Asian tiger mosquito could be 'a more efficient disease vector, especially for West Nile virus,' he said, because 'it bites in daytime and could put more people at risk.'

Pete Rendine, chief inspector with the mosquito control division of the Bergen County Public Works Department, said Asian tiger mosquitoes 'are the worst, nuisance-wise, because they are adapting to our climate. They are here to stay.'

'This is an extremely obnoxious nuisance mosquito,' said Claudia O'Malley, a biologist for the state's mosquito control division. 'It is impossible to control without concerted efforts by homeowners in eliminating the breeding habitat,' she said.

Not only is it aggressive, but the Asian tiger mosquito is a known vector for some serious viral diseases around the world, including West Nile virus, dengue fever, easte equine encephalitis and chikungunya fever, experts say.

Among those diseases, the only ones that are of real conce in northe climates like that of New Jersey are equine encephalitis, which affects horses, and West Nile, which affects people.

'The thing is, if homeowners would only clean up their property we would not even have an albopictus problem,' said Rendine.

Even a discarded bottlecap holds enough water to allow Asian tiger mosquito eggs to hatch into larvae, Rendine said, and a neglected kiddie pool or clogged gutter can tu into a breeding ground and bring misery to an entire neighborhood, he added.

Rendine said he often responds to reports of mosquito swarms only to discover that the source is a carelessly discarded tire or a container of stagnant water teeming with mosquito larvae known as 'wrigglers.'

'This is how you kill them,' Rendine said, spilling a cup filled with water and wrigglers out onto the ground behind his office in Paramus. 'That's it. That's all there is to it. Without water, they die.'

Rendine said that when he responds to a complaint he sometimes sees that the source of a problem is in a neighboring yard, and if the neighbor refuses to cooperate by eliminating the cause, he has to call the municipal or county health department.

A major source of breeding water, said Green, is abandoned swimming pools behind foreclosed homes. 'There's nobody to maintain these pools, and the mosquitoes just take over,' he said.

'If everybody did their part, this mosquito could be eliminated,' Green said. Warren Staudinger, the assistant chief inspector in Bergen County, agreed.

'If everyone could be a good neighbor, and if there's an elderly person who physically can't tu over a trash can filled with water, offer to do it for them,' he said.

The larvae needs about seven days to develop into flying adults, Staudinger said. Once that happens, the only thing that will kill the creatures is spraying.

'Water left standing for more than five days is an open invitation,' he said.

For people with backyard oamental ponds, Rendine has two suggestions: fit the pond with an aerator to keep the water moving, or stock it with a few two-inch fish known as gambusia afinis, or mosquitofish, which eat - you guessed it - mosquito larvae.