Zac_A:
Mosquitoes? Unless you’re in an area where there are likely to be Anopheles mosquitos (see link for geographical areas) then they are no more than an annoyance, but far less of an annoyance than the king of biting insects, the scottish midge, who congregate in huge clouds and vitually eat you alive. Now there’s something you want to keep out of your cab at all costs! cdc.gov/malaria/about/distribution.html
Agreed!!
Scottish midges are to be avoided.
Added to my country list of biting/stinging mossie things (I didn’t ask them for their Latin names ) are mossie ‘things’ that you’d find in Sweden at certain times of the year. Is there any such thing as a Swedish midge?
Zac_A:
Mosquitoes? Unless you’re in an area where there are likely to be Anopheles mosquitos (see link for geographical areas) then they are no more than an annoyance, but far less of an annoyance than the king of biting insects, the scottish midge, who congregate in huge clouds and vitually eat you alive. Now there’s something you want to keep out of your cab at all costs! cdc.gov/malaria/about/distribution.html
There are two types of mosquito which spread malaria, Anophelene is the main one, I can’t remember the other one.
Other types spread other diseases, which we’re unlikely to encounter in Europe (unless global warming).
Scottish, and potentially Swedish (if there is such a thing ), midges also require still water to lay their eggs near. For the same reason as mosquitos.
A lot of other biting insects need the same, for the same reason.
Further useless trivia for you. It’s only the females who bite. They need blood for their egg fertilisation system.
Any blood, but ours is easy, no thick fur coat to get through. And the itchy lump is from the anti-coagulant they inject, so they can drink enough blood before the tiny hole they cut is blocked by coagulation. The males are vegetarian and live on sap, so they have the same mouth parts, to cut into the sap bearing parts of the plants.
Like I said, useless, but interesting, I thought
dieseldave:
If you’re in the area of Italy on the A4 between Turin and Novara (other Italian mossie hell-holes are available!) you’re going to be eaten alive if you dare to leave a window even slightly open whilst you sleep at certain times of the year. Some parts of Belgium and the Netherlands were also riddled with the mossie pest.
Back in the day (1980s) we used to use a 12V plug-in device called a UFO, which looked like a flying saucer, onto which you’d put a pastrille. Pastrilles were pale blue oblong tablets just like very thick dry pieces of blotting paper.
You’d then be able to have the windows open a bit once you saw some wispy smoke from your UFO. I also used a fan on low speed for cooling myself, but it had the added advantage of wafting the smoke out of the windows and keeping the hoards of little biters at bay.
A tube of Anthisan was also a good investment.
Happy days once you got the job sussed!!
I used those tablets you plugged into the cigar lighter quite a lot. For the most part they were very good. I remember one driver in Tangier docks grinding tablets into an ash tray and setting fire to them. You didn’t get the slow-release benefit that way
Simon:
Further useless trivia for you. It’s only the females who bite. They need blood for their egg fertilisation system.
Any blood, but ours is easy, no thick fur coat to get through. And the itchy lump is from the anti-coagulant they inject, so they can drink enough blood before the tiny hole they cut is blocked by coagulation. The males are vegetarian and live on sap, so they have the same mouth parts, to cut into the sap bearing parts of the plants.
Like I said, useless, but interesting, I thought
I don’t think that’s useless trivia Simon… I knew that it was the females that did the biting/stinging, but it never occurred to me to wonder what the males ate. Now I know.
OwenMoney:
Within a minute or two after the mosquito starts to ‘feed’ on a human, she then urinates and defecates on you to make room for your blood.
Ick
OwenMoney:
Within a minute or two after the mosquito starts to ‘feed’ on a human, she then urinates and defecates on you to make room for your blood.
Ick
OwenMoney:
Within a minute or two after the mosquito starts to ‘feed’ on a human, she then urinates and defecates on you to make room for your blood.
Ick
Meh…That will just be food for the tiny little creatures that live on our skin, things like Demodex that live inside the follicles of your hairs, there’s thousands of other things like that too, we are each of us a walking ecosystem of little beasties, as gross as that might sound.
The really unpleasant thing about mosquitoes (if we’re talking about Anopheles mosquitoes) is that she shares her “passengers” with you, the single-celled organism Plasmodium that lives inside your liver and red blood cells, and which causes malaria.
dieseldave:
If you’re in the area of Italy on the A4 between Turin and Novara (other Italian mossie hell-holes are available!) you’re going to be eaten alive if you dare to leave a window even slightly open whilst you sleep at certain times of the year. Some parts of Belgium and the Netherlands were also riddled with the mossie pest.
Back in the day (1980s) we used to use a 12V plug-in device called a UFO, which looked like a flying saucer, onto which you’d put a pastrille. Pastrilles were pale blue oblong tablets just like very thick dry pieces of blotting paper.
You’d then be able to have the windows open a bit once you saw some wispy smoke from your UFO. I also used a fan on low speed for cooling myself, but it had the added advantage of wafting the smoke out of the windows and keeping the hoards of little biters at bay.
Sounds like my experiences back in the day.I did use the pastilles but I usually found a fan to be good.I had been told that mozzies don’t like turbulent air.
The worst place I recall being bitten was when I overnighted at a tank cleaning place between Antwerp and Brussels (name forgotten).That was horrendous and exhausting.
Added to my country list of biting/stinging mossie things (I didn’t ask them for their Latin names ) are mossie ‘things’ that you’d find in Sweden at certain times of the year. Is there any such thing as a Swedish midge?
Sweden has vast acreages of standing water.
Yes, standing water, perfect for them, bad news for us.
Apparently Sweden has 47 species of mosquito, 45 of which bite, but they don’t cause malaria, so just an annoyance really. The Swedes call their mossies “mygg”, which sounds a lot like midge, confusingly.
Sweden has midge too apparently, which they call ‘knott’, though they are lightweights compared the scottish midge and generally found in the north west of the country only.
A friend of mine at Uni did his PhD all about midge (chironomids). For studying their flight he had to rent a special camera from Kodak to be able to film the wingbeats, which average 800 per second
Gidders:
The worst place I recall being bitten was when I overnighted at a tank cleaning place between Antwerp and Brussels (name forgotten).That was horrendous and exhausting.
) are mossie ‘things’ that you’d find in Sweden at certain times of the year. Is there any such thing as a Swedish midge?
