Urban pests traveled with ancient humans

IF 45.8 1区综合性期刊 Q1 MULTIDISCIPLINARY SCIENCES

Science Pub Date : 2025-10-23 DOI:10.1126/science.aec1986

Jason Munshi-South, Ann Evankow

引用次数: 0

Abstract

Humans have coevolved with many species of insects since prehistoric times. Nobelist Karl von Frisch, famous for deciphering the honey bee waggle dance, opined that people hardly notice these fascinating “little housemates” until they become vexatious pests (1). One such insect, a common urban mosquito, became a feature of life during World War II for people sheltering in London subway tunnels to avoid German Blitz bombings. This “London Underground mosquito” continues to bite humans in Western European and North American subways today. On page 355 of this issue, Haba et al. (2) report that this mosquito, Culex pipiens form molestus, has a backstory with humans that dates to ancient Middle Eastern settlements. Their work buries a popular idea that molestus evolved recently from surface populations to take advantage of urban infrastructure.

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城市害虫与古代人类一起迁徙

自史前时代以来，人类就与许多种类的昆虫共同进化。因破译蜜蜂摇摆舞而闻名的诺贝尔奖获得者卡尔·冯·弗里施认为，人们几乎没有注意到这些迷人的“小室友”，直到它们变成了令人烦恼的害虫(1)。其中一种昆虫，一种常见的城市蚊子，在第二次世界大战期间成为躲在伦敦地铁隧道里躲避德国闪电战轰炸的人们生活的一部分。这种“伦敦地铁蚊子”至今仍在西欧和北美的地铁里叮咬人类。在本期的第355页，Haba等人(2)报道说，这种蚊子，即摩鼠的库蚊，与人类的背景故事可以追溯到古代中东定居点。他们的工作掩盖了一个流行的观点，即鼹鼠最近从地面种群进化而来，利用城市基础设施。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Science 综合性期刊-综合性期刊

CiteScore

61.10

自引率

0.90%

发文量

审稿时长

2.1 months

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