From The Hanford Sentinel
November 16, 2019
There’s a new(ish) pesky critter in town, and while it doesn’t directly affect our garden plants, it does affect our gardens, and more importantly, our gardeners!
Have you been bothered by multiple large, itchy welts, especially around your lower legs? Did you think the culprit was a gnat? Have you curtailed your backyard activities in order to avoid these bites? If you’ve answered yes to any of these questions, then it’s time to find out if you are unknowingly harboring the Aedes aegypti mosquito and allowing it to breed in your yard.
The Aedes aegypti is a different mosquito species from the native California mosquitoes that most of us in the Valley are used to. It is much smaller, measuring only 1/8 – 1/4″. Although this mosquito will bite at night and target any available area of your body, it does prefer to bite the lower legs during the daytime hours. It is so small, most people don’t feel it bite. What I find the most annoying about these bites is their excessive itch that no amount of anti-itch cream seems to alleviate.