Mosquitoes have been found in Iceland for the first time amid a climate crisis that is warming the country, making it more hospitable for insects, The Guardian reported on Tuesday.

Iceland, apart from Antarctica, was one of the few places in the world that did not have a mosquito population.

However, temperatures in the country have been rising at four times the rate of the rest of the Northern Hemisphere. Due to this, glaciers are collapsing and fish from warmer, southern environments, such as mackerel, have been found in the country’s waters, The Guardian reported.

Scientists have repeatedly warned that mosquitoes could establish themselves amid these conditions, as there were several habitats for breeding, including marshes and ponds.

The discovery came to light when a man identified as Björn Hjaltason from Kiðafell in Iceland’s Kjósarhreppur municipality said that he had found three mosquitoes of the species Culiseta annulata in his garden last week, Icelandic daily mbl.is reported.

Hjaltason had posted about his findings on a Facebook group named Insects in Iceland.

“At dusk on October 16, I caught sight of a strange fly on a red wine ribbon [a trap used to attract insects],” The Guardian quoted Hjaltason as saying. “I immediately suspected what was going on and quickly collected the fly. It was a female.”

He was able to catch two more over the next two days and subsequently sent them to Matthías Alfreðsson, an entomologist at the Natural Science Institute of Iceland.

Alfreðsson confirmed that three specimens of the Culiseta annulata – two females and one male – were found in Kiðafell.

“They were all collected from wine ropes during wine roping aimed at attracting moths,” the newspaper quoted the entomologist as saying.

The species is cold-resistant and can survive the harsh conditions in the country by taking shelter in basements and barns, according to The Guardian.

As the climate crisis worsens, species of mosquitoes have been found in regions of the globe that were previously not home to them.

In the United Kingdom, eggs of the Egyptian mosquito, or the Aedes aegypti, were found this year, The Guardian reported. The Asian tiger mosquito, or the Aedes albopictus, was also discovered in Kent.

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