Which species of Culicoides was responsible for the outbreak in Northern Europe?
The midge that caused this outbreak probably came from the C. pulicaris and C. obsoletus groups, which contain multiple species of Culicoides. As of yet, we haven’t found any positive midges in the UK so we cannot conclusively answer which species was responsible for the outbreak here in the UK. However, by analyzing wind patterns we were able to conclude that a plume of midges brought by easterly winds from Belgium or the Netherlands was most likely responsible for the outbreak. You can read more about this on the IAH Web site.
