41 comments
This story from Central America is particularly gruesome.
> In early April, an unfortunate British soldier walked into a snake that was hanging from a branch. It bit him in the eye. ‘He felt such intense pain’, a physician noted, ‘that he was unable to proceed’. Though the man’s comrades attempted to suck the venom from him, the man died ‘with all the symptoms of putrefaction’: bloated, skin coloured yellow, his eye dissolved.
I can't imagine trying to suck venom from someone's eye.
Surprised the harsh winters weren't mentioned. Winters in New England, New York, and parts of Pennsylvania are more severe than anything most British soldiers would have experienced save for those stationed in Canada or from the Scottish Highlands.
Regarding mosquitoes, I don't know if they are bigger but in the deep woods in the Eastern US they can be intense, even outside of swamplands. I hiked through the northern Adirondacks in July 2019 and naively brought some eco-friendly mosquito repellent. I paid for it dearly over the 5 day trip. They were relentless, and the only protection on the trail were hats with nets or heavy duty repellent applied throughout the day.
Don't forget about the dreaded black flies...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_fly#/media/File:Black_Fl...
The National Film Board of Canada's documentary on black flies is an ear-worm: https://www.nfb.ca/film/blackfly/
> the Scottish Highlands
maybe you mean Norway or Greenland.. is there any area in Scotland like a harsh Nor' Eastern winter storm ?
A question for folks living there, or visited - are the description of fauna at least a bit accurate? Ie oversized mosquitoes (where swamps were not completely drained hundred years ago). Easily 2x the size of regular central european ones (or anywhere I've been really, including malaric ones).
As an European, the biggest ones I've seen were in northern Scandinavia. Huge guys, massive swarms of them, sitting on people and backpacks in hundreds as they walked. Te only protection was thick clothing over everything.
Still, any exposed part of skin had 10-20 bites easily. They were harmless, and once I've got used to that weren't itching, as long as I didn't accidentally scratched/bruised over them.
> Ie oversized mosquitoes (where swamps were not completely drained hundred years ago).
The native mosquitoes of the DC area can grow to a body length of about 1 inch or a bit longer (~3cm). They were the ones that were nocturnal (or at least dusk active). This variety is likely what revolutionary soldiers would have been writing about.
They have largely been out competed by the invasive "black fly" version (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aedes_albopictus) that is active all day (and so, is much more a nuisance, even if they are only about 3/8 inch (~1cm) body length).
The area that is now Washington, DC, was not a scene of operations during the Revolutionary War. There were a couple of small port towns, Alexandria and Georgetown, and various farms.
The mosquitoes were probably not averse to crossing county lines to get at that succulent British blue blood.
There wasn't anything particularly important there--capturing Alexandria and Georgetown would have been as effective as capturing Havre de Grace or Port Deposit. And I think that what is now Washington, DC, was part of Prince George's County, which extends east to the Patuxent.
It hard to say because at least here in New England, a lot of the swamps have been long drained.
But if it's anything like the wetlands or swamps that remain - you'd have to be utterly naive or completely insane to try and cross them on foot. Pools of shallow water among sludgey mounds of mud and incrediblely dense and tangled vegetation. It's not even something you would consider entering, much less try and cross.
Not in most of the US, but the ones in Alaska can mummify a water buffalo in under 5 minutes.
Running joke is that the mosquito is "Alaska's state bird"
There are no native water buffalo in Alaska. Are you perhaps thinking of American bison?
> There are no native water buffalo in Alaska.
yea, that just shows you how vicious those mosquitos are!
Florida has some aggressive species like the Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus that are known for spreading diseases like dengue, Zika, and chikungunya. We used to chase after the mosquito truck spraying DEET as kids
DEET is a repellant not an insecticide? Was it DDT maybe? (Not certain)
They used to drive down the alleys in my hometown with a fogging truck to kill mosquitos. The only thing they said was "stay inside with the windows closed for a bit". Seems kinda crazy in hindsight.
I had it wrong. I think it’s just what us laymen called it. Looked it up, it is a pyrethin based spray
In N. Florida I think it was Malathion.
We called it the the fog truck.
I did that in Gainesville in the mid-70s… were we friends?
Ha I was more of an 80s kid and not in Gainesville
Glad to know that others had fun chasing the DDT truck.
Yes, you can still encounter this in the New England wilderness, particularly in central to northern Maine. But in New England at least, the settlers essentially clear cut the forests and filled in the swamps. Most of the wetlands and old growth forests have been completely erased. For the most part, what forests we have are not much more than a century old, and you constantly run across old foundations and property boundaries when you hike through them.
> Huge guys, massive swarms of them, sitting on people and backpacks in hundreds as they walked.
They sound like sandflies. I wouldn’t expect mosquitoes that far north.
I wouldn’t expect mosquitoes that far north.
Alaska would like a word. Worst mosquitoes (both in size and number) I’ve ever experienced were at the Arctic Circle campground. They’re so big, they don’t even make a buzzing sound, it’s more like “flap, flap, flap”. (I exaggerate only slightly.)
> Alaska would like a word. Worst mosquitoes (both in size and number) I’ve ever experienced ....
In Alaska's Brooks Mountain Range above the Arctic Circle, on a Boy Scout "summer" backpacking trip in 2006, my son and his friends amused themselves by slapping each other on the back with their gloved hands: They wanted to see who could kill the most mosquitoes with one handprint. My son won, with 39 dead. (I was there as one of the adult leaders — to steal from another adult leader, my own idea of roughing it is when there's bad coffee at the Hampton Inn's free breakfast bar ....)
It's not the geographic location as much as the unimpeded wetlands. Undeveloped and frontier areas are much as you describe your experience in Scandinavia.
The difference in modern times is even more stark because any half civilized government overseeing a region that isn't arid engages in fairly aggressive mosquito control on at least a yearly basis.
>Still, any exposed part of skin had 10-20 bites easily.
Most locals up north will use "jungle oil" or "hunter's oil" if out on a trip. It's a kind of thick black oil you smother any exposed skin with. It keeps all the mosquitoes away, but it's kind of messy.
Could you share some examples of these products? Searching around found a few very different things; it's hard to tell which ones you mean.
"Djungelolja 40ml" https://handla.ica.se/produkt/1010826 There are lots of different brands.
Is that the “war paint” you see in movies like Predator?
Pretty much yes
There are very large mosquitoes that do not consume blood (eat other mosquitoes iirc) like the smaller ones. I’ve seen these in Texas.
Are you talking about "mosquito hawks"? That's what we used to call them.
You might be thinking to crane flies--dont' think they eat mosquitoes.
Yes, mosquito hawks, though I never saw one in the act of eating a mosquito, just picked up the name somewhere.
Mosquitos are very abundant in the North. Canada, Russia, Siberia and Scandinavia all have huge numbers of them, as well as long spring summer days. Many British soldiers died as they had zero tolerance, and many died with the only wounds being mosquito bites and the systemic infections that followed - there was zero medication of any kind against infections. Some may have lost so much blood that they died from that alone. Having been in Northern Ontario's(Canada) temperate jungles, I have experienced these swarms. Of course I had DEET and screened hats/clothes. Black flies are even worse because they are a lot smaller and they crawl into small crevices at ankles/neck and gnaw away a piece of flesh to take away = lay an egg. Their cutters are sharp and have a numbing saliva so you can not feel the bites and you notice the bite when the blood suns down = it does not clot because it has anti-clot chemicals along with the numbing chemicals also in their saliva. Again good clothes/hats work well with velcro snugged all around all ankles/wrists/neck. Nets can not be near the skin, as mosquitos can reach across about 1/4" air gaps and get you. Get a hole in the net = they find it. Now try and work at 90 degrees and 100% humidity = a sweatshop.
I was told a story when I was younger (take it with a grain of salt I cannot find anything to corroborate it). The British embassy use to offer (maybe still does) "Tropical" pay for individuals stationed in temperate climates. Washington D.C. was considered a tropical location for years because of the notorious swampy and muggy conditions experienced in the warmer seasons. Stationed diplomats knew of this hazard/tropic pay and wanted to keep it, and when leaders would come to visit they would exasperate the conditions by turning off the AC. One year some time in the 80's they forgot to turn off the AC during a prime minister visit, and at that point the tropical pay was revoked.
Also fun fact they also have a Pub in the basement of the embassy.
A common error, but in case it’s not a typo / autocorrect - it’s exacerbate not exasperate.
This seems to have been urban legend. I think that embassy staff might have been entitled to a bit more vacation. Unfortunately, I can't offer any source--it would have been a publication in the Washington area.
> they also have a Pub in the basement of the embassy.
Frankly, I'd be genuinely amazed if any British embassy didn't have a pub on premises.
I sometimes wonder how the nature of North America was perceived by the early european settlers. With the body of american myth, including the wild west, etc, you could get the impression that the plains were more vast, the mountains taller, the rivers rougher and the animals bigger than anywhere else in the world. Compared to continental Europe, I suppose this could be true. But were the plains of central Asia, the Himalayas, the animals of Africa unknown to these people? Or maybe they were know, and the experiences of the other placed I mentioned were similarly described.
