This 2020 could really be over!

Common mosquitoes have turned up on King George Island, popular with Antarctic tourists, Alexander Klepikov, leader of the Russian Arctic expedition, said on Friday.

According to Klepikov, this is “due” to the human factor: on George Island, which has a temperate climate compared to regional conditions, where seven countries maintain observatories, there are many tourists. Streams and rivers are three degrees in summer and minus five degrees in winter.

The common mosquito was unknown until now in Antarctica, where only its wingless version is native. The leader of the Russian expedition said that, at the initiative of the management council of the national Arctic programs, a study of the situation and the development of a procedure to catch blood-sucking insects had been initiated.

Klepikov reported that one of the buildings at the Russian Bellingshausen station had to be disinfected due to the appearance of mosquitoes.

(Our illustration of the opening image).