News Headline
Disappearing act
Source
Science Codex
Publication Date
2018-03-01
The Asian tiger mosquito -- carrier of such diseases as dengue, yellow fever, Rift Valley fever, Chikungunya and Zika -- appears to have vanished from Palmyra. Not native to the small atoll 1,000 miles south of Hawaii, Aedes albopict likely came to Palmyra during World War II, when the United States took it over as a base of operations. The military imported many other species as well, including the common black rat, Rattus rattus, a large tree-dwelling rodent whose blood fed many of the mosquitoes.