The subtropical climate allows for year-round production of salt marsh mosquitoes and the extensive coastline and flat topography creates a disproportionate area of salt marsh. Florida’s low latitude location creates the perfect tide regime for the creation of high marsh. Lee County has over 56,000 acres of salt marsh that breeds mosquitoes. Lee County also has some of the most productive salt marsh for mosquito development. Dr. Provost reported in article titled Man, Mosquitoes and Birds in the Florida Naturalist, April 1969 page 64 that, “To catch over a third of a million mosquitoes in someone’s backyard in one night becomes more understandable when we measured egg densities in Sanibel Slough as high as 45,000 [eggs] per square foot, which projected, would be two billion an acre.” Currently, there are still 56,000 acres of salt marsh mosquito habitat in Lee County.
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