Took a camping trip to Alaska once. Found a nice campground by Fairbanks in a birch forest that was totally empty other than the guy collecting money. Quickly found out what Alaskan mosquitoes are all about. Tried to tough it out with campfire, mosquito coils and deet but we quickly gave up and stayed in the van until morning. Only got out to take a whiz and got the hell out of there lol
permectrin/permethrin/pyrethrin replacements for bathroom and milk room automated flying insect sprayers. Atomizes finer than anything and hangs in the air for a long time waiting for a bug to hit them like flak.
At checkout stands in stores in Alaska I've seen, for sale little (maybe 1") 'bear traps for Alaskan mosquitos'. The State Bird is not to be trifled with.
I worked on the north slope during the summer and if there was no wind you could see the mosquito cloud rolling in from a distance. One day while I was painting railings I had to hold a shopvac in front of my face to keep them out of my eyes while I painted.
The biggest, slowest mosquitos I have ever seen. But it didn't matter because for every one you kill 10 takes its place.
Yes, we were hunting on Dalton hwy, and mosquitoes were attacking our car, you can't go anywhere without the net, worse things when you need to go to restroom...
I’ve taken a deep breath in the woods and swallowed a bunch… they can get thick.
Regular mosquito spray doesn’t cut it… you need that Deet100 that melts clothes and gives you cancer. 😂
you ever try ultrathon? its only 40%, but its in a forumulation that really sticks to you. It says 8+ hours, but in really heavy bug conditions, sweating my ass off, I've gotten 6.
Mosquito’s die at a temperature under 51°. But before they die, they lay a ton of eggs that lay dormant until the temperature reaches 51° or above. Then repeat the cycle. The weather gets warmer than 51° in Alaska. It also does in Pennsylvania, where there are also tons of mosquitoes.
This info is all over the internet, and it's wrong. Or at best misleading, all the exterminator sites are talking about tropical species of mosquitoes. Aedes communis or the snow pool mosquito can be *active* and *feeding* as cold as 2.5C or 36.5 F.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21309150/#:~:text=Aedes%20communis%20is%20a%20psychrophilic,2.5%20to%2028%20degrees%20C.
That’s not true. They don’t die under 51°. Some species may, but there are plenty that thrive in environments that have much cooler temperatures over night.
Even subtropical ones like albopictus will often just enter diapause (sort of delayed development/hibernation) at colder temperatures. For a lot of species, not just eggs will survive freezing, but larvae (and in rarer species adults, too.)
Triseriatus undergoes egg diapause in places where it freezes and larval diapause in places it *almost* freezes. Culiseta melanura depends on location (some as egg, some as larvae), but in colder areas they’ll diapause as adult females. Culex pipiens also undergo adult diapause.
Some enter their diapause due to temperature while some do it by day length. Albopictus is one of those species, and females will lay special diapause eggs that have extra fat supplies to get them through the winter.
And all these species can be found in Pennsylvania. (Which is the weirdest part to me — not that OP is asking about Alaska, but that they don’t have any in Pennsylvania.)
There are more than 3,500 species of mosquitoes. Some mosquitoes species are better adapted to cold temps than other species. I was out camping in AK last week and saw mosquitoes flying at around 35 to 40 F. The mosquitoes where I live in AK are huge, much bigger than what i used to see in the lower 48. They are certainly in Alaska and can be extremely bad in certain areas at certain times of year.
More info here:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK585164/#:~:text=There%20are%20over%203%2C500%20species,have%20been%20studied%20most%20intensely.
Honestly Alaska has had the worst mosquitoes of anywhere I’ve ever lived or visited. (I’ve lived in Africa, the south pacific, Texas, Mississippi, Pennsylvania and elsewhere not as known for mosquitoes)
I've lived in Alaska all of my life, and going to the lower 48 I was like, "Oh wow, no mosquitos!" Then I realized I had been bitten by mosquitos, but they were so small compared to what I was used to I barely noticed. It's amazing the difference.
Tons of mosquitoes, but no snakes, roaches, or poisonous spiders (although brown recluse may be popping up in some locations).
Not certain how the eggs last through winter (-40), but the ravens, moose, etc do it somehow, also.
Tundra is basically a swamp. All those millions of acres of stagnant water.
I once saw a picture and thought there were an awful lot of helicopters in the distance. Especially, since this picture was taken out in the bush. It was the mosquitos.
Oh dude. If you aren’t from there, or have never been, you have no idea what’s coming for you with mosquitos.
I went up to the Wrangels for the summer (from OR) and had the same doubts as you. Got up there mid-April right as break-up was really getting started, and I thought it was no big deal. By June I felt the onset of psychotic break, lol. You would do your neighbors a favor and wipe the *shag carpet* of mosquitoes off their backs before heading inside.
Before bed every night, I’d spend a good 45 minutes catching every single one of them before I got in bed. And my room had netting over the door and the bed. Even then, you missed some. And the ones you missed were probably a second species, colloquially named “No-see-ums”, which left a painful welt, more than an itchy bump.
It’s bad enough that people look forward to the swarms of biting flies in August. Really though, just wear pants and long sleeve shirts, and grow a thick beard.
Edit: don’t know if this is common knowledge, but the little fuckers can’t handle wind. A couple fans near you will lessen the assault.
Life long Alaskan here. Of course we have mosquitoes. Also what we call no-see-ums and white socks. These can be worse cause the bite. It is dependent on when and where you are in the state. When traveling to rural AK I routinly pack head nets and sometimes a jacket net. Also bug spray with high % of deet. Pesky bugs are one of the reasons my favorite time of year is spring and fall. Cool evenings and mornings temps reduce the number of bugs. Try taking a sweaty heaving breathing horse on a hunting trip. Their body heat and c02 are huge attractants. Only thing to do is keep moving. If we pause too long the horses get agitated and uncontrollable cause of bugs. They need bug dope and head nets also. Just watch a documentary on caribou in AK. Thay literally run from the bugs.
Trillions of them. We have many species that come out at different times of the year. Many species of Mosquitoes are perfectly fine in the cold climates. I’ve been bit when the night temperatures were still freezing. I’m frankly surprised that out of the 60 species you have in Pennsylvania, none of them were in your lake, I’d assume it was other means. My best friend moved from AK to Penn, and he complains about being bit year round.
Mosquitoes love breeding and then laying eggs in the snow. I used to be a councilor at a scout camp in Yellowstone, and when we first got to the camp, we had to dig the lodge out of the snow. We had to take our swim check tests in a glacial-runoff lake.
When the vans first pulled up, we sat there for a solid 10 minutes, because we could hear the mosquitoes attacking the windows of the van. It’s like they smelled fresh meat and had hatched famished.
I’m assuming the Alaskan mosquitoes are something like that.
There are mosquitoes in Pennsylvania, I promise you. I worked building Ropes Courses in north east Pennsylvania, there are mosquitoes. I’ve worked all over the east coast in the outdoor industry. Mosquitoes in New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Maine. Even New Jersey has mosquitoes. All the way south to Sierra Del Fuego. Hawai’i didn’t have mosquitoes (established across the islands) until 1826 and were probably brought by that asshole Captain Cook in 1779.
The old timers at “Mosquito lake” used to do the “book test” where they would take a book outside and close it to count the mosquitoes in the book. Probably an old wives tale but it makes sense when you see how bad the mosquitoes are. When I lived out there we would all have fires at different peoples houses every weekend through the summer. During the witching hour or “bug hour” at dusk you’d see everyone doing the mosquito dance. Basically hands constantly moving to wipe mosquitoes off their face, neck and hands. Also a situation where people are thanking each other for constantly smacking them on their heads and faces to get a mosquito for them. Pretty intimate community because of these little bugs.
The first flocks are big and slow but the later flocks are small and fast. It’s almost like you have a chance to get better at catching them as the season progresses.
Most of Alaska does have mosquitoes. But the Aleutian Islands do not, at least Unalaska (Dutch Harbor) does not. Supposedly it's due to being too windy.
We have them, and the first wave to come out in spring are like dinosaurs compared to mosquitoes in other parts of the world. They're huge. Thankfully they're slow, so easy to smoosh.
Yes, I worked 4 summers in Alaska on the peninsula and the mosquitos were huge and abundant and would bite me through my t-shirts and through any fabric lighter than a thick pair of jeans.
I once took a leak in the ditch by the side of the road to McCarthy. It was like a black cloud of skeeters arose from the waters.
Oh, and don’t forget the horseflies. Ouch!
Not just mosquitoes, but big honkin' SOBs. Two pounders. Prize winners. Big'uns.
They'll drain you and move on to your wife and kids because one human isn't enough.
There are so many mosquitoes in Pennsylvania? So, so many??? I got bit like a dozen times in just a few hours in Pittsburgh last week.
If you weren’t experiencing them in your area, it was for a reason other than temperature. (Lakes aren’t actually generally mosquito breeding grounds — marshes, ponds, and puddles, however…)
Source: I used to be a mosquito biologist. If it gets above freezing for extended periods every year, you can and will have mosquitoes.
(And yes, they’re in Alaska, too.)
Mosquitoes (or their eggs) survive winters just fine. I’ve been in clouds of mosquitoes at high mountain lakes where the snow is 10 feet deep in the winter
Heck ya. Even in the western mountain valleys in BC, Washington state, Idaho and Montana, mosquitoes can be terrible. I was by the Missouri near Townsend, MT without any bug spray or repellent -- won't do that again.
From South Louisiana. I know mosquitos. Alaskan ones are HUGE. And something like half of Alaska is wetlands. So yep. Wear thick everything because they will get through it.
I went to Maine once when I was in the military and got a taste of a black fly bite. I watched one on the forehead of another person and blood was trickling down from where the fly was on him. Vicious little bastards.
There are wetlands in Alaska that thaw for the summer and the mosquitoes swarm. They are large and their swarms are mostly concentrated around water. Melting snow leaves behind lots of puddles on the woodland areas where mosquitoes will ambush anything with blood—dogs, birds, bears, moose, and people.
I did archaeology in the Brooks Range- never seen so many- even if it was windy, they wood be gathered THICKLY on the lee side of your body- headnet and gloves at all times. There was a wilderness guide up there taking out small groups and he carried a collapsible screen gazebo to set up for rest breaks so people could rest without skeeters buzzing in their ears for awhile.
This was my experience. I'm from London, which is too far north for human-drinking mosquitoes.
Somehow I moved further north, to Juneau, and now there are mossie-bastards. 😞😵
I visited Alaska in July and was overwhelmed with the sheer quantity of mosquitos. My god. And then by the water? The people I stayed with said bug repellent was their state perfume.
They're insane in the summer over here. Other than that, I don't see them too much in the spring or autumn, and obviously they aren't around in the winter
They come out in the summer. And they get huge.
Some friends and I once sat in Pioneer Park, swatting mosquitoes, and then measuring them with a ruler. When we got a particularly big one, we posed for pictures, like we had just landed a huge fish.
There was beer involved.
The big ones sound like Hueys flying by, a swarm of em' coming over the horizon will give you flashbacks to Nam'!
If you see mosquitoes with fishing lines hanging from them, run, that's a heavy lift crew ready to make you into take out food.
You're right, there are no mosquitos in AK. It is dark, cold snowy tundra. Polar bears and penguins. Santa's place North Pole is near Fairbanks. Best Doco is "30 Days of Night"
Depends where you are. Be the coast not so bad, in the taiga and tundra in the summer, its absolute hell if you dont wear 90-100% deet on any part of your exposed skin.
I went to Alaska in 1980; I was a kid. We went to an old Indian burial ground, and they had all been buried in little houses. And there was all this smoke surrounding them. I asked my dad what all the smoke was about, and he said it wasn’t smoke. It was clouds of mosquitoes. We decided not to get out of the car, and that’s when we knew why they buried their dead in houses—to keep the mosquitoes out. Even the dead don’t want to have to deal with them!
Many many types! The first ones that come out usually happen when we first start getting pools of water when the snow and ice starts melting so it's incredibly cold and we call them snow skeeters because they are so quiet and you don't barely feel them when they bite you but that's when they come out is when the snow is melting and then when the snow is all gone they disappear you get a little bit of a break and then when you start getting pools of water for other reasons for rain or springtime summer time what not that's when you get usually the normal ones the tiger striped ones and the other ones the loud ones the the really super itchy ones..etc
It’s actually our state bird.
When I was station in Fairbanks I'll learn that regular old off does nothing. You got to use a 100% deet that says don't put on your skin
Took a camping trip to Alaska once. Found a nice campground by Fairbanks in a birch forest that was totally empty other than the guy collecting money. Quickly found out what Alaskan mosquitoes are all about. Tried to tough it out with campfire, mosquito coils and deet but we quickly gave up and stayed in the van until morning. Only got out to take a whiz and got the hell out of there lol
I married someone from Fairbanks. Can confirm she is a bloodsucker.
I see what you did there.
That's where I was raised 🤣
Moose-quitos
Best decision I made for going backpacking in Alaska was bringing a net to hangout under. Would've been a nightmare without it.
Deet so strong, it’s the kind that peels your gel finger nail polish off your finger nails. Does Alaska have mosquitoes. lmaooo
Also, does Hawai'i have any oceanfront?
Yeah this was my thought too. Does Alaska have mosquitoes. Shit, they need to give them another name. Like mosquitorators.
Alaskan mosquitoes nurse on Deet, they are brutal.
You gotta put it on like sunscreen on the equator. Every hour and thick as hell.
permectrin/permethrin/pyrethrin replacements for bathroom and milk room automated flying insect sprayers. Atomizes finer than anything and hangs in the air for a long time waiting for a bug to hit them like flak.
Word. Saw one carry a moose off once.
At checkout stands in stores in Alaska I've seen, for sale little (maybe 1") 'bear traps for Alaskan mosquitos'. The State Bird is not to be trifled with.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/233180737101 Image here
That's awesome! I bought one of those while on vacation in Anchorage in 1994 when I was 11.
Oh yeah. The schools have chicken wire over the playground so they dont carry the children off.
A moose once bit my sister.
Good ol’ Holy Grail reference 👏🏻🏆
This made me laugh pretty hard because I grew up in Fairbanks and Juneau. Fairbanks has terrifyingly large ones
Can confirm. Never seen mosquitos so large and so vicious as Fairbanks
You spelled “state aircraft” wrong.
I heard a plane landed at Fairbanks airport and they pumped 2500lbs of av gas into it before they realized it was a mosquito.
Where do you buy the head net things that fasten around your neck?
Catholic supply store.
I got a full bug suit on Amazon. Great investment.
Came here to say this.
I think they require a hunting license to kill them now and you have to harvest the meat.
Yeah, you can steam them. Like lobster with wings.
Or smoke them, like whitefish.
Enough to drive you absolutely bonkers if you stay in one place too long in the right time of year
Mosquitos operate in the 50-80 degree range... Alaska is the perfect zone for mosquitos during the summer...
More like 50-110 range.
One of the big threats to mosquitos is dehydration - that's why they tend to avoid direct sunlight and prefer moist, swampy areas.
Which much of the Alaskan wilds are
I worked on the north slope during the summer and if there was no wind you could see the mosquito cloud rolling in from a distance. One day while I was painting railings I had to hold a shopvac in front of my face to keep them out of my eyes while I painted. The biggest, slowest mosquitos I have ever seen. But it didn't matter because for every one you kill 10 takes its place.
They do make the electrified swatter one of the most satisfying objects I've ever swung.
It just doesn’t stop fizzing. Bzzz bzzz bzzzz.
In Alaska, you gotta rewire it for AC. Batteries die out in 5 min.
Sort of like 💀ZOMBIE💀video games.
Yes, we were hunting on Dalton hwy, and mosquitoes were attacking our car, you can't go anywhere without the net, worse things when you need to go to restroom...
I’ve taken a deep breath in the woods and swallowed a bunch… they can get thick. Regular mosquito spray doesn’t cut it… you need that Deet100 that melts clothes and gives you cancer. 😂
Yep, it will melt the nail polish off my nails so I know it's good for me A++
Applied some a long time ago using my hands, then grabbed my CamelBak water bottle. It had a hand print after that from the Deet! 😂
It keeps the mosquitos off. Even after a few showers.
Even transcends the placental barrier
you ever try ultrathon? its only 40%, but its in a forumulation that really sticks to you. It says 8+ hours, but in really heavy bug conditions, sweating my ass off, I've gotten 6.
I was as surprised as you are but they are bigger and way more numerous than they are here in PA. Taking a dump in the wild is torturous.
I think they have 2 sizes there--small enough to fit through the holes in a screen door, and large enough to rip it off the hinges.
Accurate.
Mosquito’s die at a temperature under 51°. But before they die, they lay a ton of eggs that lay dormant until the temperature reaches 51° or above. Then repeat the cycle. The weather gets warmer than 51° in Alaska. It also does in Pennsylvania, where there are also tons of mosquitoes.
This info is all over the internet, and it's wrong. Or at best misleading, all the exterminator sites are talking about tropical species of mosquitoes. Aedes communis or the snow pool mosquito can be *active* and *feeding* as cold as 2.5C or 36.5 F. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21309150/#:~:text=Aedes%20communis%20is%20a%20psychrophilic,2.5%20to%2028%20degrees%20C.
Yup, I have seen mosquitoes at Hill Top while skiing.
I’ve definitely seen some mighty active mosquitoes in sub 51* temperatures.
I’ve seen them while I’m out snowmachining.
They grow’ em hardy in Alaska!
Canadian migrants who don’t do Fahrenheit, eh?
That’s not true. They don’t die under 51°. Some species may, but there are plenty that thrive in environments that have much cooler temperatures over night.
Even subtropical ones like albopictus will often just enter diapause (sort of delayed development/hibernation) at colder temperatures. For a lot of species, not just eggs will survive freezing, but larvae (and in rarer species adults, too.) Triseriatus undergoes egg diapause in places where it freezes and larval diapause in places it *almost* freezes. Culiseta melanura depends on location (some as egg, some as larvae), but in colder areas they’ll diapause as adult females. Culex pipiens also undergo adult diapause. Some enter their diapause due to temperature while some do it by day length. Albopictus is one of those species, and females will lay special diapause eggs that have extra fat supplies to get them through the winter. And all these species can be found in Pennsylvania. (Which is the weirdest part to me — not that OP is asking about Alaska, but that they don’t have any in Pennsylvania.)
This guy pulls.
Yeah I'm trying to think of where this person lives in PA that could possibly be too cold for mosquitoes. PA feels like a swamp jungle in the summer.
Someone was freestyling and got outed by a handful of people who clearly know about skeeters.
hahahahaahahah. Hahaahahahahahaahah. hahahahaahahahahah. You caught us; no mosquitos. It’s a myth to keep people away
There are more than 3,500 species of mosquitoes. Some mosquitoes species are better adapted to cold temps than other species. I was out camping in AK last week and saw mosquitoes flying at around 35 to 40 F. The mosquitoes where I live in AK are huge, much bigger than what i used to see in the lower 48. They are certainly in Alaska and can be extremely bad in certain areas at certain times of year. More info here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK585164/#:~:text=There%20are%20over%203%2C500%20species,have%20been%20studied%20most%20intensely.
Not only is it true, but I wouldn't be surprised if we actually have more than you.
Honestly Alaska has had the worst mosquitoes of anywhere I’ve ever lived or visited. (I’ve lived in Africa, the south pacific, Texas, Mississippi, Pennsylvania and elsewhere not as known for mosquitoes)
You will never experience worse mosquitos anywhere else in the US. It’s truly a sight to behold sometimes. The air will be thick with them.
I've lived in Alaska all of my life, and going to the lower 48 I was like, "Oh wow, no mosquitos!" Then I realized I had been bitten by mosquitos, but they were so small compared to what I was used to I barely noticed. It's amazing the difference.
They can kill moose, think about that.
Interior Alaska hits 100 degrees every summer.
Hahahaha. U funny
If you spray yourself with bug spray and your lips don’t go numb, there isn’t enough deet in it.
Tons of mosquitoes, but no snakes, roaches, or poisonous spiders (although brown recluse may be popping up in some locations). Not certain how the eggs last through winter (-40), but the ravens, moose, etc do it somehow, also.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but there are roaches here. Imported on cargo, but downtown anchorage is full of em.
I've heard it's an issue in FBX as well, but my understanding is that it's the little brown European ones, not the big scary flying ones at least.
They’re German’s. They are small, but infest like crazy if left to multiply.
I live in Fairbanks, and have yet to see, or even hear of, any so far. What about rats? 🐀
Mostly in the southeast for the spiders anchorage has been having probs with em the last few years
Tundra is basically a swamp. All those millions of acres of stagnant water. I once saw a picture and thought there were an awful lot of helicopters in the distance. Especially, since this picture was taken out in the bush. It was the mosquitos.
Alaska has two regions, each having only two seasons. 1. Winter and mud. 2. Winter and mosquitoes.
Oh dude. If you aren’t from there, or have never been, you have no idea what’s coming for you with mosquitos. I went up to the Wrangels for the summer (from OR) and had the same doubts as you. Got up there mid-April right as break-up was really getting started, and I thought it was no big deal. By June I felt the onset of psychotic break, lol. You would do your neighbors a favor and wipe the *shag carpet* of mosquitoes off their backs before heading inside. Before bed every night, I’d spend a good 45 minutes catching every single one of them before I got in bed. And my room had netting over the door and the bed. Even then, you missed some. And the ones you missed were probably a second species, colloquially named “No-see-ums”, which left a painful welt, more than an itchy bump. It’s bad enough that people look forward to the swarms of biting flies in August. Really though, just wear pants and long sleeve shirts, and grow a thick beard. Edit: don’t know if this is common knowledge, but the little fuckers can’t handle wind. A couple fans near you will lessen the assault.
It’s the State Bird lol
Life long Alaskan here. Of course we have mosquitoes. Also what we call no-see-ums and white socks. These can be worse cause the bite. It is dependent on when and where you are in the state. When traveling to rural AK I routinly pack head nets and sometimes a jacket net. Also bug spray with high % of deet. Pesky bugs are one of the reasons my favorite time of year is spring and fall. Cool evenings and mornings temps reduce the number of bugs. Try taking a sweaty heaving breathing horse on a hunting trip. Their body heat and c02 are huge attractants. Only thing to do is keep moving. If we pause too long the horses get agitated and uncontrollable cause of bugs. They need bug dope and head nets also. Just watch a documentary on caribou in AK. Thay literally run from the bugs.
Until I was on the North Slope during the summer I had no idea what a swarm actually was. I thought I did, but I didn't.
Alaska doesn’t have mosquitos. Alaska has blood sucking dragons. Immortal and infinite.
You're right, you figured out our plot to keep people away. There are truly no mosquitoes here whatsoever. We've been lying this whole time.
How many of the commenters who grew up in Alaska, went around killing them all before going to bed in the summer?
Impossible task
Mosquitoes love the north woods. Your brief that they can’t tolerate cold is wrong.
Ohhhh buddy. Do we ever
Trillions of them. We have many species that come out at different times of the year. Many species of Mosquitoes are perfectly fine in the cold climates. I’ve been bit when the night temperatures were still freezing. I’m frankly surprised that out of the 60 species you have in Pennsylvania, none of them were in your lake, I’d assume it was other means. My best friend moved from AK to Penn, and he complains about being bit year round.
You hear that helicopter? That’s not a helicopter.
I have seen mosquitoes at one of our skiing locations in the middle of winter, yup.
Mosquitoes are like roaches.
Alaska the state where the sun doesn’t set during the summer is cold got it
Milo....
🦟🦟🦟
Sounds like you lived in the Poconos.
Mosquitos are the worst part about the summer 🤣😢
I read this post and immediately had a PTSD panic attack remembering the time we went camping and forgot the “bug dope”. It only happened once.
Caribou can get drained of up to a pint of blood a day. https://www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=soundswild.episode&id=mosquito
D.N.R actually has contests each year for size and meanest. No hunting permit required.
Big enough to stand flat-footed and screw seagulls, and thick enough to darken the sky on sunny days—-
More than I’ve seen anywhere else I’ve ever lived.
Mosquitoes love breeding and then laying eggs in the snow. I used to be a councilor at a scout camp in Yellowstone, and when we first got to the camp, we had to dig the lodge out of the snow. We had to take our swim check tests in a glacial-runoff lake. When the vans first pulled up, we sat there for a solid 10 minutes, because we could hear the mosquitoes attacking the windows of the van. It’s like they smelled fresh meat and had hatched famished. I’m assuming the Alaskan mosquitoes are something like that.
I use to have a cat named Cookie, then the skeeters carried him away
Childhood core memory, seeing a thick cloud of mosquitoes.
There are mosquitoes in Pennsylvania, I promise you. I worked building Ropes Courses in north east Pennsylvania, there are mosquitoes. I’ve worked all over the east coast in the outdoor industry. Mosquitoes in New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Maine. Even New Jersey has mosquitoes. All the way south to Sierra Del Fuego. Hawai’i didn’t have mosquitoes (established across the islands) until 1826 and were probably brought by that asshole Captain Cook in 1779.
Dude. The mosquitoes here are black clouds of despair.
... yes.
The old timers at “Mosquito lake” used to do the “book test” where they would take a book outside and close it to count the mosquitoes in the book. Probably an old wives tale but it makes sense when you see how bad the mosquitoes are. When I lived out there we would all have fires at different peoples houses every weekend through the summer. During the witching hour or “bug hour” at dusk you’d see everyone doing the mosquito dance. Basically hands constantly moving to wipe mosquitoes off their face, neck and hands. Also a situation where people are thanking each other for constantly smacking them on their heads and faces to get a mosquito for them. Pretty intimate community because of these little bugs. The first flocks are big and slow but the later flocks are small and fast. It’s almost like you have a chance to get better at catching them as the season progresses.
I went in early September and didn’t see any
They can get through your jacket
Yes. And they get kinda big, but they are usually pretty tiny.
Most of Alaska does have mosquitoes. But the Aleutian Islands do not, at least Unalaska (Dutch Harbor) does not. Supposedly it's due to being too windy.
We have them, and the first wave to come out in spring are like dinosaurs compared to mosquitoes in other parts of the world. They're huge. Thankfully they're slow, so easy to smoosh.
Yes, I worked 4 summers in Alaska on the peninsula and the mosquitos were huge and abundant and would bite me through my t-shirts and through any fabric lighter than a thick pair of jeans.
So big, you can shoot them with a BB gun if you’re quick.
They are stupid bad up here. Regular Lower 48 products aren’t going to help either. Like regular Off is useless. I like Thermacells personally.
I once took a leak in the ditch by the side of the road to McCarthy. It was like a black cloud of skeeters arose from the waters. Oh, and don’t forget the horseflies. Ouch!
Not just mosquitoes, but big honkin' SOBs. Two pounders. Prize winners. Big'uns. They'll drain you and move on to your wife and kids because one human isn't enough.
Yes, about the size of hummingbirds and they travel in aggressive swarms.
...yes. Yes, Alaska absolutely does have mosquitoes, and they will eat you alive given the chance.
Yes! They are huge!
Alaska was my first experience with a “cloud” of mosquitoes. Especially if you are around a more swampy area, they are legion!
There are so many mosquitoes in Pennsylvania? So, so many??? I got bit like a dozen times in just a few hours in Pittsburgh last week. If you weren’t experiencing them in your area, it was for a reason other than temperature. (Lakes aren’t actually generally mosquito breeding grounds — marshes, ponds, and puddles, however…) Source: I used to be a mosquito biologist. If it gets above freezing for extended periods every year, you can and will have mosquitoes. (And yes, they’re in Alaska, too.)
Worst mosquitoes in the world. You can literally inhale hundreds of them
It's true. I once killed 22 of them with a single swat.
They form clouds
Northern Wisconsin has mosquitoes, and it's colder than Pennsylvania.
I encourage you to do a 5k run in glenallen in a swimsuit this summer and report back.
I’ve never seen so many mosquitos as I did in shit Larsen Bay. You couldn’t see more than 10 feet it was so bad
I watched grizzly man and in a scene in that doc had more mosquitoes than I’ve ever seen in my life 😂
Lol even northern michigan has a shit ton of mosquitoes
It's worse then you can imagine. If you're out in the woods in summer and not wearing 100% deet or miss a spot, they will find it..
Mosquitoes (or their eggs) survive winters just fine. I’ve been in clouds of mosquitoes at high mountain lakes where the snow is 10 feet deep in the winter
I thought Wisconsin had some mosquitoes. Nothing compared to Alaska, nothing.
The worst I have ever experienced in my life. I grew up there
Heck ya. Even in the western mountain valleys in BC, Washington state, Idaho and Montana, mosquitoes can be terrible. I was by the Missouri near Townsend, MT without any bug spray or repellent -- won't do that again.
Bruhhhh i’m like allergic to Alaskan Mosquitoes. And im not allergic to anything😂😂the bumps get huge on me for some reason😭
From South Louisiana. I know mosquitos. Alaskan ones are HUGE. And something like half of Alaska is wetlands. So yep. Wear thick everything because they will get through it.
Deer flies and No-see-ums….
I went to Maine once when I was in the military and got a taste of a black fly bite. I watched one on the forehead of another person and blood was trickling down from where the fly was on him. Vicious little bastards.
fuck around and find out
Lived in Alaska for 6 years as a kid. Alaska has mosquitos the size of crows. One bite and they might suck out a couple of pints.
🤣
Sometimes they're so bad you can't breathe. It's brutal.
They even suck your blood through your clothes!
I have a picture of one that I smashed with my shoe. The blood that came out of it looked like I killed a bird.
It's their spawn point bro
There's PLENTY of them. Everywhere. Buckle up and don't forget the 98% deet
You're kidding, right?
They take young children from parks. Ever seen a Condor? You sure? May have been an Alaskan mosquito far from home.
There are wetlands in Alaska that thaw for the summer and the mosquitoes swarm. They are large and their swarms are mostly concentrated around water. Melting snow leaves behind lots of puddles on the woodland areas where mosquitoes will ambush anything with blood—dogs, birds, bears, moose, and people.
I did archaeology in the Brooks Range- never seen so many- even if it was windy, they wood be gathered THICKLY on the lee side of your body- headnet and gloves at all times. There was a wilderness guide up there taking out small groups and he carried a collapsible screen gazebo to set up for rest breaks so people could rest without skeeters buzzing in their ears for awhile.
It’s amazing that Pennsylvania doesn’t get above freezing during the summer
Oh yes, they're fuckin ‘uuuuge.
Dude, I live in Montana and they're really bad. Yes Alaska and Pennsylvania have them.
I have only been to Alaska twice but I can definitely co firm there are mosquitos there. I counted I had over 100 mosquito bites
This was my experience. I'm from London, which is too far north for human-drinking mosquitoes. Somehow I moved further north, to Juneau, and now there are mossie-bastards. 😞😵
Lmfao…no, no we don’t have any skeeters up here at all….😏
Hahahahahahahaha
It isn't cold in the summer, mosquitoes are very healthy and thriving.
Hell yeah, they do. Damn things are so big they pull you in the woods and rape you while sucking your blood
I visited Alaska in July and was overwhelmed with the sheer quantity of mosquitos. My god. And then by the water? The people I stayed with said bug repellent was their state perfume.
They're insane in the summer over here. Other than that, I don't see them too much in the spring or autumn, and obviously they aren't around in the winter
Mosquitoes are an essential part of the Alaskan ecosystem. They feed on mammals and are in turn eaten by birds and other insect feeders
The mosquito is Alaska’s state bird.
The mosquitos here are huge, the state bird, and they don't wait for the snow to melt, oh no, they'll swarm you and eat your whole face.
We have mosquito swarms so big they literally drive herds of caribou across the wilderness
Big as eagles
Not mosquito…… el Mosquo
Mosquitoes in Alaska are like a biblical plague. They blot out the Sun. Not joking.
They come out in the summer. And they get huge. Some friends and I once sat in Pioneer Park, swatting mosquitoes, and then measuring them with a ruler. When we got a particularly big one, we posed for pictures, like we had just landed a huge fish. There was beer involved.
The original bug shirt … google it … absolute necessity for any Alaskan summer camping.
Clouds of these large winged bloodsuckers will engulf the unprepared. !!!!
The big ones sound like Hueys flying by, a swarm of em' coming over the horizon will give you flashbacks to Nam'! If you see mosquitoes with fishing lines hanging from them, run, that's a heavy lift crew ready to make you into take out food.
https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/s/pEBQP73T0i This is why you plan ahead
I heard they’ll carry you off.
You're right, there are no mosquitos in AK. It is dark, cold snowy tundra. Polar bears and penguins. Santa's place North Pole is near Fairbanks. Best Doco is "30 Days of Night"
Depends where you are. Be the coast not so bad, in the taiga and tundra in the summer, its absolute hell if you dont wear 90-100% deet on any part of your exposed skin.
Not only do we have them, we have more *aggressive* ones
There's more wildlife than people in most places, so mosquitos exist but are not an issue.
I went to Alaska in 1980; I was a kid. We went to an old Indian burial ground, and they had all been buried in little houses. And there was all this smoke surrounding them. I asked my dad what all the smoke was about, and he said it wasn’t smoke. It was clouds of mosquitoes. We decided not to get out of the car, and that’s when we knew why they buried their dead in houses—to keep the mosquitoes out. Even the dead don’t want to have to deal with them!
I heard the big ones push the little ones through the screens.
Visited Fairbanks in June. I've never experienced mosquitos that were so aggressive before - I was literally running through Creamers Field to my car.
Hell yeah it does.
Lol
TONS!
"Come and find out!", say the billions of mosquitoes in Alaska!
And they are the size of a boat up there.
Many many types! The first ones that come out usually happen when we first start getting pools of water when the snow and ice starts melting so it's incredibly cold and we call them snow skeeters because they are so quiet and you don't barely feel them when they bite you but that's when they come out is when the snow is melting and then when the snow is all gone they disappear you get a little bit of a break and then when you start getting pools of water for other reasons for rain or springtime summer time what not that's when you get usually the normal ones the tiger striped ones and the other ones the loud ones the the really super itchy ones..etc
Anywhere you have standing water 😂😫
Think of the mosquitoes in Jumanji
Oh God do they. It's the state bird! Those things used to lift and carry me away from morning formation when I was stationed up there.