ILULISSAT, GREENLAND– (By Lisa Strong-Aufhauser) Mosquitoes are a fact of life in Greenland, so we quickly learned. I gave blood first in Kangerlussuaq. I made the mistake of wearing flip-flops in our room at the KISS facility (Kangerlussuaq International Science Support). How I missed the stealthy little fliers flocking to my ankles, I do not know, but I was itching in my shoes for at least a week.

It was cooler in Ilulissat, so more clothes generally meant fewer bites. We had various other talismans against them too, including a Buzz Off scarf, mosquito repellant, mosquito head nets, and even a mosquito-proof jacket, all of which came in handy at one time or another. Because, shooting in clouds of mosquito was a challenge. Both Mary and our guests tried, on camera, to ignore the swarms that often came to the interviews too, drawn to our warm blood. Sometimes their valiant efforts to ignore the bugs burst into waves of flapping and slapping.

The mosquitoes in Greenland are a different species than the ones we usually encounter in the lower 48 of the US. Superbly adapted to their Arctic environment, these mosquitoes can fly in temperatures approaching freezing and during their breeding season in July, the females, which prefer meals of blood, are active hunters 24 hours a day. Like male mosquitoes, a female can live on nectar while she waits for a mammal to provide a more nutritious meal. Arctic mosquitoes do not require a blood meal to lay eggs, although her brood is much bigger if she finds a musk ox, caribou, or human to feast upon. The female mosquito lays eggs on dry land and hatching requires that the eggs must dry out, freeze, and then thaw in water the following summer. The mosquitoes in Greenland are stealth bombers, they don’t whine like their more southerly cousins. Arctic mosquitoes are so numerous; they can drive musk oxen and caribou to the top of the ice sheet to escape the bloodthirsty tormentors.