Flies, mosquitoes and caterpillars will be more common in northern Norway due to wet spring – NRK Nordland

When it’s summer and their clothes are loose, they strike.

Insects.

The mosquito bites when you lose track. The cleat sits on the leg. And the fly buzzes around the islands.

And this year they may be even more than before. I fall in northern Norway.

Wet spring and abrupt heat are the best recipe for insect baby boom.

– As in a hive

And that’s what Kriss Bodøgaard from Bodø got to experience. On the way up Steigtind, one of the most popular hiking destinations in the area, it started to swarm around him.

– It was like going into a hive. There were flies on all sides.

– I have experienced it before, but never as bad as now, he says.

The fly is attracted to the fragrant human excrement. With sun and heat they become more active and it may seem that there are even more of them.

Svartfulga is very annoying. It is not without reason he is called irritants in Latin:

Fortunately for Bodøgaard, he had equipped himself with a hat. She took away for most of the flies.

– Many sat on the hat. It sounds most like a dial tone.

Christian Steel, a biologist in Sabima, explains that this is typical of insects in the Arctic.

– One never knows when summer will come and how long he will be. It’s a matter of pushing around. It may be autumn before one knows the word of it, he says.

The small flies depend on sun and heat to hatch. Many of them overwinter as pupae or lichens. Now it’s time to get in the air while the sun shines.

– The fly always lays the same number of eggs, but favorable conditions in the larval development mean that more people survive, says the researcher.

But what can you actually do when they irritate the most?

– Mosquito hat is my best tip. Then you create a little value for yourself, and let go of the insect, says Steel.

Wet spring gives many stings

The sudden summer heat Nordlendingane can enjoy, so does the insect.

But the summer heat came after a very wet spring. This may mean that we have to expect more from those who bite and bite.

– Most insects that bite and bite, like wet weather. They have larvae in moist soil and water, and when the heat first comes, after it has been our humid climate for a long time, there can be a lot of them.

That’s what Frode Ødegaard, scientific advisor in, says NINA.

– As long as there is good moisture and a lot of water, there are good conditions for everyone to bite and sting.

Good times for butterfly hunters

But it is not just the annoying insects that can become more of.

– For those who are interested in butterflies, it looks very promising, says gardener Stig Lundmo.

There are in fact some butterfly species on the road, which are not usually in the north as often.

Some butterflies seem to be coming further north this year than before. Others come earlier.

– Does the insect come in periods jamt over the summer?

– There are different species in the groups. The individual species hatch at about the same time, but it overlaps with several species that come over a longer period.

This also applies to flies, caterpillars and mosquitoes.

But even though they are annoying, the biologist in Sabima thinks that we should also be grateful for flies and mosquitoes.

In many places, insect death is a major problem, and it has major consequences for the ecosystem.

– It is not difficult to understand that they are troublesome, but they are terribly important in nature. We who are visiting nature and must accept those who live here.

– We almost have to be happy that they are here, says Steel.