The zoologist: “Korean super mosquito still a mystery, we will investigate risks”

The cold-resistant Korean super mosquito is still “a mystery” and it is not known for sure what the potential risks to humans are from the spread of this species, “of which very few studies exist today”. Paolo Gabrieli, zoologist, among the researchers of the Biosciences Department of the State University of Milan who conducted the research on ‘Aedes koreicus’, brings together some incontrovertible points of the studies done so far on the insect. “We know that it stings humans, but we don’t know if it also stings animals or what their preference is,” he explains to Adnkronos. And this is no small detail to understand its ability to transmit viruses or pathogens. “Not knowing is a problem because animals carry pathogens and this involves great risks. Just think of the Nile Fever virus, which circulates in migratory birds and passes to humans through mosquito bites.” At the moment its privileged environment seems to be the mountains: researchers have found larvae of this mosquito throughout the Alps, but also in the area of ​​Bergamo and Brescia. “We have no idea what the potential risk of its presence is. It can be – he reiterates – it can be harmless or it can be risky. For now we know, for example, that it is capable of transmitting heartworms, known to affect dogs. This already poses a problem. veterinary problem “. And, again, “we potentially know that it can transmit the Chikungunya virus or the Japanese encephalitis virus. Our intention is to investigate these aspects and the ability to transmit viruses”. Then it is not certain that it arrived in Lombardy with the comings and goings of international flights. “It is difficult to say how it could have arrived in Italy. It is true that with the movements of goods and people new species are imported, but the Korean mosquito was described years ago in Belluno”. Therefore, one of the hypotheses is that the ‘colony’ of Bergamo and Brescia is derived from the population that already existed in Veneto. Or, being close to a hub like Orio al Serio, “it may have been introduced from there but it is one of the hypotheses in the field, there is a lack of genetic data”. Similar to the Korean is the Japanese mosquito: “Both are spreading together in Northern Italy, even if the Japanese with smaller numbers and lower altitudes”. The difference with the tiger mosquito is the longer life cycle: “We find Koreans from March to late autumn, the ‘tigers’ live in summer, especially in the plains”. Unlike the tiger, to which it still resembles, the Korean mosquito “is a little larger, is brown in color and has a pattern on the chest. Under the microscope they are easily distinguished”.