In theGalapagos Islandscould have serious problems in the future because of themosquitoes. A new study by the British University of Leeds, the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) and the Galapagos National Park has just revealed that, while their continental congeners prefer the blood of mammals and birds, the island variety of the mosquitoAedes taeniorhynchushas evolved to feed on the blood of reptiles, mainly endemic species such asgiant tortoises and iguanasmarine.
According to the authors of the research, the finding implies that it would be enough for a single mosquito carrying diseases such as avian malaria or West Nile fever to arrive from the continent on a plane to infect island mosquitoes and spread the pathogen throughout the archipelago. Due to their long isolation, the islands’ wildlife is unlikely to be immune to these new diseases, so the effect would be devastating. Although the Ecuadorian government currently requires that planes flying to the islands be treated with insecticides, similar measures are still pending for ships.
Using genetic techniques, scientists have shown that themosquito colonized the Galapagos approximately 200,000 years ago, long before humans set foot on the islands, and that their evolution since then has been as spectacular as that of the reptiles and finches that naturalist Charles Darwin studied more than a century ago. Everything indicates that “the variety of the islands could be evolving to become anew species“says Arnaud Bataille, a co-author of the study.
