Take a look, if you dare:
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
Exceptionally heavy rains, the kind that are sometimes linked to human-created climate change, can create new wet areas where mosquitos lay eggs and bring about frightening swarms after hatching. But according to the Twitter account of the Siberian Times, a highly followable English-language content creator from Russia’s far east, what you’re seeing here—roughly 1 gazillion male insects circling and looking for females—is typical Siberian summer fare.
And while I’m no entomologist, the size of the swarm suggests these bugs have a long, successful record of finding and mating with each other.