None of us can stand mosquitoes . Whenever we hear them flying, we try to chase them away and we wonder what they are for in the ecosystem. There are ways to prevent bites and creams to lessen their annoyance, but even a single mosquito, with its buzzing and bites, can annoy us. Imagine how frightening and disturbing the scenario that many people in Russia witnessed : a real tornado of these insects even obscured the sun.
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image credit: The Siberian Times/Twitter
In just a few hours, the video shot by a motorist went viral . The phenomenon occurred on the east coast of Kamchatka, where a tornado of mosquitoes, insects and dust quickly rose from the ground. From a distance it looked like a tornado in action made of dust and debris, but as we got closer, we quickly realized that this whirlwind was a whirlwind of insects.
A witness to the phenomenon, Alexei , said: “I drove my car through the mosquito cloud for several hundred meters. It was not a pleasant experience as I could hardly see the road and I dared not not open windows “. The video, shot from inside a car driving on a freeway, shows the insects hitting – at high speed – the car window, as a few feet away the vortex rises into the sky. Those who witnessed the phenomenon up close described it as “an apocalyptic scene” . Alexei added that the tornado appeared to “disassemble” and then reform into a funnel.
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Impressive 'tornadoes' of swarming mosquitoes over the settlement of Ust-Kamchatsk, eastern coast of the Kamchatka peninsula. This is an annual event, and local residents are more than used to it, but they agree that it might cause a bit of panic among unprepared visitors pic.twitter.com/lnXr2Cq7Iw
— The Siberian Times (@siberian_times) July 18, 2021
image credit: The Siberian Times/Twitter
But what is the cause of this phenomenon? Experts say the tornado was formed by male mosquitoes that swarmed around one of the females to mate, which is normal. Crowds of mosquitoes never come together to form an organism dangerous to humans. This worrying whirlwind is most likely also due to climate change : the rise in temperatures is causing serious inconvenience, including the exponential lengthening of the mosquito breeding season . Can you imagine what the spectators felt?
Source used:
https://nypost.com/2021/07/19/warms-of-mosquitoes-transform-into-a-mosquito-tornado/