From NBC Los Angeles
July 20, 2019
It’s that time of year again: it’s time for barbecuing, basking in the sun, and of course, fending off annoying bites from mosquitoes.
What’s worse, in Southern California, is the presence of an aggressive ankle-biter mosquito that will bite multiple times, and doesn’t wait for dusk — they’ll attack right in the middle of the day, or even inside your house. That’s atypical mosquito behavior, at least for the kinds that are native to Southern California.
If you’ve noticed you’ve suddenly been bitten multiple times around your ankles, you were likely victim to the Aedes mosquito, which officials believe arrived on a container ship from Asia. It’s an invasive species, meaning not native to Southern California, and fueled by bloodlust (basically). And they have the potential to carry harmful diseases, like in the case of one 74-year-old Imperial County man who died after contracting West Nile virus, which was the first person to die of the virus in California in 2019.