NYC’s subways are swarming with skeeters. The warm, wet summer and mild winter created a bumper crop of mosquitoes — and they’re breeding in the stagnant puddles of the steaming underground and sucking straphanger blood, reports the NY Post.
With Zika going around, this worries riders.
Big Apple exterminators report a major skeeter spike this summer. “Service calls have more than doubled last year’s and we aren’t even in the busiest month of the season yet, which is August,” said Rest Easy Pest Control’s R.J. Huneke.
The subway system is likely infested with Culex pipien mosquitoes, which “are often found breeding in foul and stinky stagnant pools of water,” said Tom Daniels of Fordham University’s biological research center. The breed tested positive for West Nile Virus this summer, according to the city Health Department.
The Aedes aegypti mosquito — which carries Zika — isn’t found this far north, but the Asian Tiger mosquito is common in the city and has the potential to spread the virus. Read the full report at NY Post.
{Matzav.com}
