06/12/2026
Boca and Fort Lauderdale are having one of its worst saltwater mosquito seasons in years, and the reason is stranger than most people realize.
The culprit is the black saltmarsh mosquito (Aedes taeniorhynchus), a species that breeds in the mangroves and marshes of Palm/Broward County and the Everglades. Their eggs can sit dormant for months until high tides flood the area and trigger a massive hatch. Once they emerge, the wind does the rest. These mosquitoes can travel 20 to 40 miles inland, which is how something born deep in the mangroves ends up biting people in Fort Lauderdale, Oakland Park, Pompano, Light House Point, Coral Springs, Parkland, SW Ranches, Plantation, Boca and surrounding areas.
They're aggressive daytime feeders with a special talent for finding ears, ankles, necks, and eyelids. Mosquito control officials say heavy broods can put more than 100 mosquitoes on a person in under a minute, and Mosquito Control has fielded more than 1,500 service requests in just the past week.
The part most people get wrong: drought can make it worse.
In wetter years, fish move into the flooded marshes and feed on the mosquito larvae before they mature. In dry years that natural check breaks down, so larger broods survive and emerge. Southwest Florida has spent much of 2026 in drought, which has fueled the swarms we're seeing now.
The good news is these mosquitoes aren't major carriers of human disease. The bad news? They can transmit heartworm to dogs, and extreme swarms have been known to kill cattle.
Welcome to South Florida. Paradise for people. Paradise for mosquitoes too.
