In 2009, people in Tibet began to suffer from a novel form of unpleasantness—unconnected to the torment of living under Chinese rule. There were widespread reports of “strange itchy bites,” the first time anyone in that elevated tundra on the northern side of the Himalayas “could ever remember being bit by a mosquito.”
So writes Sonia Shah, an accomplished science journalist and the author of “The Next Great Migration.” A quick search on the internet—prompted by a disbelief likely in anyone plagued by this omnipresent insect—turns up scientific papers that corroborate her story. Mosquitoes had indeed, about a decade ago, made a home in Tibet, no doubt in response to changing temperatures and patterns of forestation. Put simply: The mosquitoes had migrated. Just as people do.
