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Highly aggressive, dangerous mosquito species found again in Santa Clara County



Discovery of more dangerous and highly aggressive Aedes aegypti mosquitos near a San Jose cemetery has Santa Clara County officials imploring residents to remove standing water and give access to pest-control crews so the insects don’t becoming a permanent menace.

The invasive mosquitos can transmit dengue, yellow fever and other serious diseases, and also threaten “our way of life” because of their voracious feeding on human blood can take place in the middle of the day, unlike the state’s native mosquitos, the county warned in a Friday press release.

“It feeds almost exclusively on humans and does not fly long distances, venturing fewer than 500 feet from where it hatches,” the county said.

Many of California’s native mosquitos are most active in morning and evening, when temperatures are cool, while Aedes aegypti bite any time of day.

Even a small number of Aedes aegypti “can become an extreme nuisance,” according to the California Department of Public Health.

As with other mosquito species, only females do the biting, and Aedes aegypti goes after people outdoors and indoors. One will feed on a person multiple times, according to the county’s Vector Control District. “They are known as ‘ankle biters’ because they tend to bite humans around the ankle,” the district said.

The black-and-white-striped mosquito, about a quarter-inch long, was first found in Santa Clara County in 2022, and this year has been identified in neighborhoods in San Jose, as well as in Santa Clara and Gilroy, where county crews are using pesticide to try to eradicate them. Aedes aegypti has been identified in Contra Costa County — twice this year — Santa Cruz County in 2022 and in Solano County, where it has an established population, according to county and state records. It was found in San Mateo County in 2013 but has not been seen there since 2015. The species was also found in Alameda County about a decade ago but is believed not to be established.

The insects are known to transmit dengue — often called “bone-break fever” because of its painful symptoms — plus chikungunya, yellow fever, and Zika.



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