Anyone who has spent a summer in Michigan knows that along with the warm weather comes buzzing swarms of mosquitos. Ned Walker, an entomologist and mosquito expert at Michigan State University, said this year's crop of blood-suckers are just starting to emerge and should be out in force next week. Their eggs were dormant in low-lying areas during the winter, hatching into larvae in chilly meltwater ponds in February. They just recently began to emerge, Walker said.
Vernal pool mosquitoes, the kind that bite humans, only spawn one generation each summer.
However, the insects are known to feast on mammals into September. They can bite more than once, each time depositing a new clutch of potential bloodsuckers in dry areas that will flood in the spring. The second wave of the annual mosquito attack probably will start next week, Walker said. That's when the adult summer floodwater mosquitoes begin to emerge. Summer mosquitoes also lay eggs in dry places that will become flooded.