Abundant rain helps mosquitoes flourish

RALEIGH -- The Asian tiger mosquito thrives inside man-made clutter: tin cans, old tires, buckets and gutters.

And there's nothing they like more than a good gully-washer.

It's already been a furious season for the blood-sucking bugs, especially in urban neighborhoods that offer shallow puddles in concrete, metal or clay.

But a week of persistent rain brings new larvae and new life, and there's plenty of all three in the forecast. Watch for the eggs that got laid in your flower pot after Tropical Storm Hanna to hatch about now.

"I just checked my bird bath this morning and there were over 100 larvae in it," said Charles Apperson, entomologist at N.C. State University. "They're just real abundant right now."

It's hard to find more comprehensive evidence of a mosquito plague. Nobody counts them in Raleigh or Durham or Cary, and there aren't any spray programs.

But in an unscientific test conducted just east of downtown Raleigh, a pair of exposed legs drew 16 bites in less than five minutes.

And all summer long, Triangle Pest Control has been adding five to seven new customers a week, all of them seeking a quick death for the winged nuisance.

"This year is definitely worse than last year," said Mike Dinatale, lead inspector for the Holly Springs exterminator. "And obviously, after we get five or six inches of rain, it's going to be bad."

Out of all mosquito varieties, the Asian tiger ranks among the most bothersome.

They need only a few milliliters of water to breed. They can bite as many as 10 times looking for a single blood meal. One female can lay 500 eggs in its three-week life span.

They stay clear of retention ponds and lay eggs only in containers with solid sides. So all it takes for a new crop is a cranny that can hold stagnant rain water for a week. Even a tarp tossed over a woodpile can give birth to bugs, or a rain barrel without a filter or lid.

In Rocky Mount, mosquito control director Robert Collins has already gotten a rash of calls about new pests in Hanna's wake. The town likely will have to spray again to beat them back, he said, but if people with an Asian tiger problem would just tip their pots and birdbaths, poison would be unnecessary.

"What we tell people is, if you have mosquitoes, you and your neighbors are actually breeding them," said Mike Bajorek, public works director in Cary.

The Asian tigers don't really need rain to survive. They can get by on the puddles left behind when people water lawns and plants. So for Barry Engber, an entomologist with the N.C. Division of Environmental Health, this year's mosquito cloud isn't unusual. "I had 'em last year, I had 'em this year," he said.

But one man's swarm can miss his neighbor entirely. Asian tigers never fly far from their puddle of birth, and they favor shade over sunlight, so the guy with 40-foot oaks and a plastic slide for the kids might get devoured while his neighbor safely sunbathes.

Tactics vary, too. Chapel Hill pre-treats its public spaces with granules of pesticide, so the town's mosquito control staff hasn't seen any big clouds.

But with thunderstorms forecast today and Saturday, count on blood-sucking life springing forth from the puddles, borne on tiny wings.