Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, August 18, 1995 TAG: 9508180039
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CATHRYN McCUE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
All summer, Roanokers Kyle and Lisa Updike have put up with a band of pesky mosquitoes in their Raleigh Court back yard.
The insects are kind of weird looking, with silvery stripes around their legs. And they weren't there last year.
Worse, the mosquitoes bite the Updikes and their two young children any time of day - not just in the evening.
The Updikes don't use the back yard anymore, except when they mow the grass or pick a few tomatoes.
Then they read a story in The Roanoke Times on Wednesday about the westward spread of an aggressive form of Asian mosquito that had been found in Charlottesville. It's called a tiger mosquito because of its silvery stripes.
Aha! they said. That's our insect!
"We're 99.99 percent sure it's the tiger," Kyle Updike said. He called the Roanoke agent for the Virginia Cooperative Extension Service, who captured one of the flying bloodsuckers Thursday to have it analyzed by experts at Virginia Tech. The results will take a couple of days.
But the experts were not alarmed by the possibility.
"It's not a surprise," said assistant entomologist Peter Warren. "They've been found here in Roanoke and other counties. Apparently, it became newsworthy when they found one in Charlottesville."
Last year, the tiger mosquito showed up at a business on Williamson Road that had brought a load of old tires from down south, said Rod Garnett, exterminator with the city Health Department.
For its reproductive venue, this strain of mosquito prefers containers such as tires, birdbaths, buckets or tree holes that collect water. Garnett said the business owner got rid of many old tires and put pesticide in the remaining ones, and the mosquitoes soon disappeared.
It's unknown how they turned up in the Updikes' back yard.
"The little girl next door had bites constantly," Kyle Updike said. "We thought it was kind of odd they were hunting during the day."
Updike said the bite feels like any other mosquito bite, and the itch feels like any other mosquito itch. The bump goes away after a day or so.
But the Asian tiger strain has been known to carry encephalitis, yellow fever and a host of other diseases in its home turf, said Gene Payne, superintendent of the Great Bridge Mosquito Control Commission in Chesapeake. There have been no reported cases of disease transmission in Virginia.
The quarter-inch-long mosquitoes arrived in the U.S. in 1985, carried aboard a shipment of tires from Japan. They made their first appearance in Virginia six years later, and have turned up throughout Tidewater and the Richmond area.
And now Charlottesville and Roanoke.
For now, the mosquitoes are more annoying than dangerous; but they are difficult to control, and that could lead to problems, Payne said. On average, a female lays 200 eggs, and they reproduce every five to 10 days.
Mass pesticide spraying often fails because the insects hide in bushes and shrubs and fly at knee level and below. It's also difficult to target their breeding grounds, which are small containers, not the large swampy areas where other types of mosquitoes breed.
"You can have them in your back yard, and your neighbor may not have a problem," Payne said. They don't fly more than 300 yards.
The biggest weapon Payne and other mosquito controllers have against the tiger mosquito is public education: Eliminate any possible puddle, mudhole, coffee can or other standing water if you think you could have a problem.
Updike doesn't know if his neighbors have fallen prey to the tiny suckers, but he'll be asking around the next couple of days.
"We just thought ... `What is it about our yard that's attracting these bloodthirsty things?''' he said. "Basically, we just don't go in the back yard."
by CNB