As of October 2025, the country of Iceland just discovered their first batch of mosquitos.
While only a small number, this is historic news because of the general climate of this corner of the world; mosquitos had never been noticed nor found in Iceland since it was inhabited.
As the name implies, Iceland is typically cool, dry with some periods where “heat” relative to the area may try to sneak in pending the time of year.
We Floridians are very familiar with mosquitos, especially during the rainy season. Any bit of standing water and you’re looking at a breeding ground for these pests that try to zap you of your blood the first moment they get.
Even just this morning upon stepping outside, despite the bit of dry weather we’ve been having, I noticed mosquitos were still out and about thriving.
The same can’t be said for Iceland ... usually.
According to reports, the mosquitos were discovered by someone local to the country who noticed them stuck in an insect trap outside their property.
Perplexed by what they were seeing, they immediately took a few of them and sent the samples to a local laboratory to confirm whether or not they were just seeing things. Turns out the lab results solidify the first small population of mosquitos to make their way into Iceland.
On the surface this may not seem like much, but this is pretty big. The only other spot on our planet lacking a mosquito population is none other than Antarctica. You can probably surmise why that is.
In a perfect world, Iceland is far too harsh of a climate to sustain any type of water-born insect, especially mosquitos. However, given recent data suggesting the “moistening” and warming of the region, things may be about to permanently change.
It’s been confirmed Iceland is warming about four-times the standard rate we’ve observed in other corners of the world. This has reduced the amount of time they spend under extensively dry, and frigid conditions especially outside the summer months.
This is not the only spot across the globe to recently discover an uptick in these foreign insect species.
To make matters worse, these are the same species - now considered an invasive species - that spread tropical viruses like the West Nile virus, dengue and the Zika virus we’ve seen here in Central Florida.
We could potentially see an evolution of these viral strains when introduced to a totally different climatology, considering most sicknesses tend to thrive when it’s cold out and our immune systems are already in a somewhat weakened state.