“What are those tiny whiteflies all over Brooklyn?” “Amazed an incredulous New Yorker on social networks, Friday, June 30. The question is on everyone’s lips: since Wednesday evening, at nightfall, the districts of Brooklyn and Manhattan have been invaded by a cloud of small flying insects. Videos are proliferating on social media. “You just can’t open your mouth while walking,” says one resident. The media Eyewitness News explain this surprising phenomenon.
Aphids: this is the nature of the invaders. As Jody Gangloff of Cornell University argues, aphids “are generally parthenogenetic, meaning that females give birth to females so that their populations, under the right environmental conditions, proliferate.”
No danger to public health
However, in recent days, New York City has experienced temperature increases as well as rain: a hot and humid climate conducive to the proliferation of aphids. The latter are not always winged, but as Jody Gangloff points out, “when their number reaches a certain threshold, the youngest develop wings to be able to fly away” and settle in new “host plants”. Hence their presence in the New York air.
The New York City Department of Health, however, is reassuring, saying that “while they can be annoying, these insects pose no known danger to public health”.
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dmp
2023-07-03 10:29:00
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