NBC NEWS, LAS VEGAS — If at one time it was thought mosquitoes couldn’t survive in desert climates, this city is a case study in how wrong that is.
Mosquitoes typically prefer more tropical, humid conditions, but these biting machines have exploded in number throughout the Las Vegas Valley in recent years because of a host of changes.
A mix of urban development, climate change, insecticide resistance and genetic adaptations are creating a more hospitable environment for the insects in southern Nevada.
Las Vegas is hardly alone in its battle against the pesky insects. Warmer temperatures and shifting weather patterns are expanding the geographic range in which mosquitoes live and breed. In many ways, what’s happening here is playing out across the desert Southwest and beyond.
The mosquitoes have brought with them not only the nuisance of bug bites, but also the major threat of mosquito-borne diseases such as dengue fever and West Nile virus to Las Vegas and the rest of Clark County.
It’s also caught people off guard.
“People aren’t wrong that mosquitoes shouldn’t really thrive in desert conditions, but it’s clear that the particular set of species that we do have in Clark County has adapted to the local ecology,” said Louisa Messenger, an assistant professor in the department of environmental and global health at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
‘A ticking time bomb’
The species that have taken hold in Clark County include Culex mosquitoes, which can carry West Nile virus, and Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, the primary spreaders of dengue. What’s more, Messenger and her colleagues at UNLV have found that mosquitoes in Las Vegas are becoming resistant to insecticides, a major public health risk in a city built on tourism.
“It is a little bit of a ticking time bomb,” Messenger said …
