It’s not just your imagination - the mosquitoes really are blanketing Central Illinois even more than usual this summer.
Sara Sparkman of the Tazewell County Health Department said the culprit is recent flooding.
“The mosquitoes that are out right now are floodwater mosquitoes,” said Sara Sparkman, communications director for the Tazewell County Health Department. “What they do is they lay their eggs in soil, and then when the floodwaters come in, that’s when those eggs hatch. So that’s what we’re seeing a lot of right now.”
There is some good news, however. Though irritating, the floodwater mosquitoes are not carriers of diseases like West Nile Virus. Those mosquitoes are concentrated around stagnant waters.
