Culex Modestus Orthomyxo-like Virus

The Culex modestus does not yet have an offical English name, but since modestus means 'modest' or 'discrete' in Latin, we can safely call it the modest mosquito for the time being, though there's hardly anything modest about it. Although this mosquito species has remained under the radar for a very long time, the species is found in temperate regions across Europe, Asia, and Northern Africa[1]. It has been detected in almost all European countries, including Great Britain and the Netherlands.

These mosquitoes thrive during the summer. The larvae of the modest mosquito live in fresh to brackish water in irrigation canals, marshes and rice fields. Adult females are quite bloodthirsty and feed on the blood of vertebrates, especially birds, horses and humans. The males feed on nectar.

This annoying habit of aggressively feeding on both birds and humans causes problems, because this behaviour gives it a considerable potential for the transmission of zoonotic infections from birds to humans.

Scientific research has now shown that the modest mosquito is a carrier of an influenza-like virus especially adapted to this mosquito. This virus has been provisionally designated culex modestus orthomyxo-like virus[2].

The Orthomyxoviruses are a group of viruses that also include the influenza viruses. The discovery of a related virus suggests a potential novel pathway whereby Influenza viruses can again find new possibilities to mutate.

[1] Soto, Delang: Culex modestus: the overlooked mosquito vector in Parasites and Vectors - 2023
[2] Konstantinidis et al: Defining virus-carrier networks that shape the composition of the mosquito core virome of a local ecosystem in Virus Evolution - 2022. See here.