As drought conditions are spread across the state, mosquitos are making less frequent appearances.
“A lot of what drives the mosquito population is standing water,” Green Valley Pest Control scheduler Tim Jennett said. “So if there’s soggy ground where there’s standing water, they’ll breed and multiply and they’ll be a lot worse, so if we don’t have any rain then we obviously don’t have that.”
However, the loss in mosquitos this year is made up for in other pests.
“My guys have been telling me this year the wasps have been pretty bad,” Jennett said. “Then I’d say pretty well average to normal, if there is such a thing, on the other stuff.”
Other times in these conditions, one might also see an increase in spiders.
“Spiders and other bugs are cold blooded animals, so their population seems to be driven more by temperature, so if you have warmer temperature earlier in the season, they’ll have more reproduction cycles, more so than the moisture,” Jennett said.
Jennett also said the appearances of wasps and spiders depend on the time of year.
“It seems like in the spring, in the earlier part of the year, there’s more crawling insects, and then the latter part of the year there’s flying insects,” he said.
Overall, Jennett hasn’t seen any record-breaking pest appearances of any kind, be they mosquitos, spiders or wasps.
“I’d say it really hasn’t been an abnormal bug year on one thing or another,” he said.