Humanity Is Killing Off Thousands of Species. But It’s Creating Them, Too

Illustration of a jungle full of animals: a monkey, a toucan, a frog, a crocodile and a tiger. A thick forest of branches, plants, flowers and vines just composing this scene of wildlife. An illustration made of flat and colorful geometric shapes.

By Lizzie Wade | Wired | June 28, 2016

DURING WORLD WAR II, Londoners often sought shelter from German bombs in the city’s subway tunnels. There, they encountered another type of enemy: hordes of voracious mosquitoes. These weren’t your typical aboveground mosquitoes. They were natives of the metro, born in pools of standing water that pockmarked the underground passageways. And unlike their open-air cousins, London’s subterranean skeeters seemed to love biting humans.

Fifty years after the war ended, scientists at the University of London decided to investigate the subway population. They collected eggs and larvae from subway tunnels and garden ponds and reared both populations in the lab. The tunnel bugs, they confirmed, preferred feeding on mammals over birds. And when the scientists put males and females from different populations in close quarters designed to encourage mating, not a single pairing produced offspring. That sealed the deal: The underground mosquitoes were a whole new species, adapted to life in the subway tunnels people had built.

Continue reading on Wired.