Three mosquitoes, collected from wine-soaked ropes in a garden north of Reykjavík, have ended one of the Arctic’s quietest distinctions.

In October 2025, insect enthusiast Björn Hjaltason spotted what he called “a strange fly on a red wine ribbon” at his home in Kjós, a glacial valley north of the capital. He trapped two more over the following nights. All three — two females and one male — were confirmed as Culiseta annulata by entomologist Matthías Alfreðsson at the Icelandic Institute of Natural History. They are the first mosquitoes ever recorded in Iceland.

Until then, Iceland was one of only two places on Earth with no mosquito population. The other is Antarctica. The absence wasn’t geographic — Iceland has ample marshes and ponds — but climatic. The country rarely saw temperatures above 20°C for more than a few days at a stretch, leaving mosquitoes unable to complete their life cycles.

That calculus is shifting. In 2025, Iceland exceeded 20°C for 10 consecutive days across parts of the country and recorded its hottest May temperature on record: 26.6°C at Egilsstaðir Airport. Studies show the Arctic is warming at roughly four times the global average.

Culiseta annulata, common across Europe and North Africa, can overwinter in basements and outbuildings. It bites but is not known to carry disease in Nordic regions. Whether it has truly established itself in Iceland won’t be clear until further monitoring this spring, Alfreðsson told reporters.

Hjaltason suspects the insects may have arrived via freight from a nearby port. “But if three of them came straight into my garden, there were probably more,” he told the newspaper Morgunblaðið.

Sources