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Atlantans, beware: Thousands upon thousands of aggressive female predators are lurking, longing to suck your blood.
If you don't take proper precautions, they soon could be making a meal of you.
Female Asian tiger mosquitoes, bold, blood-loving biters that lie low in ivy at night and fly and bite by day, could be at record levels this year, mosquito experts are warning.
The increased humidity caused by Tropical Storm Dennis made perfect conditions for Asian tigers, a relative newcomer to Georgia's mosquito population. Add August heat, and they could be rampant, experts said.
"Now is the time people need to be most aware of standing water," said Elmer Gray, a public health extension specialist with the University of Georgia and a member of the state's West Nile task force. "Everything needs to be dumped, and screens need to be tight."
Georgia moves into the height of the mosquito season this month and maybe this week, Gray said.
Other, native mosquitoes have tortured Georgians for centuries, but mainly during the early morning and evening hours. The Asian Tiger, which came from Houston in the mid-1990s, brings a special kind of misery. It bites during the day.
If there is anything good about Asian tigers, it is that they are not on the experts' most dangerous list of mosquitoes. They do not transmit West Nile virus, a potentially serious and even fatal illness that attacks the central nervous system.
While risk of becoming infected with West Nile is very small, Georgia, like other states, carefully tracks the illness because of its seriousness. West Nile first appeared in the United States in 1999 in New York City and has moved westward each year.
Last year, as West Nile surged to the West Coast, 2,470 cases were reported nationwide; 900 of those involved serious neurological disease, and 88 people died. The disease took a greater toll in 2003, with 9,862 overall cases, 2,866 serious cases and 264 deaths.
In 2004, Georgia reported 21 West Nile cases to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. One was fatal, according to the CDC's Web site.
This year, one case of West Nile was discovered in Paulding County in July.
Mosquito experts are urging people to rid their yards and porches of any standing water and to use mosquito repellent to keep from being bitten; hundreds of mosquitoes can hatch in just a gallon of water.
Prevention and protection are particularly important this year, when humidity and debris from Tropical Storm Dennis created not only perfect conditions for mosquito breeding but also for long mosquito life spans.
That's dangerous because mosquitoes that carry West Nile virus generally have to live to the ripe old age of seven days before they can transmit the disease. Humidity can extend their life span by preventing the bugs from becoming dehydrated and dying.
West Nile virus is transmitted most commonly by the common house mosquito, which is not nearly as aggressive as the Asian tiger. Its subtlety, however, makes it more dangerous. It sneaks up on you without your knowing it.
"The mosquito you hear in the middle of the night is the house mosquito," said Andrew Spielman, a Harvard University School of Public Health professor who wrote the seminal book on mosquitoes, "Mosquito: A Natural History of Our Most Persistent and Deadly Foe."
Spielman has spent his life studying mosquitoes and ticks, giving the tick that causes Lyme disease its name and helping to track and curb the estimated 2 million deaths a year in Africa due to malaria, a mosquito-borne illness.
"I know the likelihood of anything happening is absolutely minuscule, but I become emotional at 2 a.m., chasing the damn thing down," Spielman said.
It would not be accurate to say that mosquitoes are smart, Spielman said, but it is not a far stretch to say that their adaptability is remarkable --- and deadly.
Also deadly is the bugs' ability to spread disease far and wide, without requiring any direct exposure from one person to another. That makes them among the most efficient disease carriers on Earth.
"They're biting a person on one side of town and carrying [a disease] to another on another side of town," Spielman said.
The threat of mosquito-borne illnesses aside, the misery factor should lead people to be mindful of keeping the pests at bay, experts said.
"Mosquitoes just as pests can be an enormous problem," said Dr. Walter Tabachnick, director of the University of Florida Medical Entomology Laboratory in Vero Beach. "Just the sheer biting does affect quality of life."
Had people not invented ways, such as air conditioning, screens and insect repellent, to keep mosquitoes at bay, "we wouldn't even have people living here," Tabachnick said.
Copyright 2005 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
