The culprit was a stowaway Brazilian Wandering Spider, an 11cm black and red arachnid with a bite that causes convulsions, hypothermia, death and\u2014if you\u2019re of the male persuasion\u2014a particularly painful case of uncontrolled erections. You can imagine the shock.<\/p>\n
The store shut<\/a> for precautionary disinfection, and the spider got away, never to be heard from again. But it\u2019s hardly the only invasive creepy crawly to make its way into European tabloids lately.<\/p>\n France has acquired an unfortunate pre-Olympic reputation for rampant bed bug infestations, with Paris deputy mayor Emmanuel Gr\u00e9goire warning<\/a> people \u201cno one is safe. You can catch them anywhere,\u201d and reports of the bloodsuckers on the Eurostar causing panic in London.<\/p>\n Tiger mosquitoes, which can carry Dengue and Zika, have also been seen around the country, leading Paris authorities to bring in entomologist \u2018detectives\u2019<\/a> to track down their breeding spots.<\/p>\n The Turkish pharmaceutical industry, meanwhile, is eyeing Europe more broadly as an exciting new export market for scorpion antivenom<\/a>.<\/p>\n Kemal Karagoz\/Anadolu Agency\/Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Is climate change to blame for this apparent arthropodal invasion?<\/p>\n The reality is rather less apocalyptic than the headlines suggest, says Dr Matt Green, principal entomologist at UK-based global pest control company Rentokil Initial, which has operations across the continent.<\/p>\n We\u2019re nowhere close to Dengue becoming endemic. Reports of French bed bugs rose largely because people saw horror headlines and started looking under their mattresses. And if we are generally seeing more invasive species it\u2019s mostly not due to rising temperatures.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m often asked how climate change is affecting our business. Well, given that humans have already transported all the major pests to pretty much every country, and certainly every major human center of activity, not as much as you might think,\u201d Green tells Fortune<\/em>.<\/p>\n Is climate change to blame for this apparent arthropodal invasion?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n The good news is that those worrying about bumping into errant Brazilian Wandering Spiders can relax.<\/p>\n Most species need more than a mere rise in temperatures to make a home in new and very different ecosystems. For example, the Sheerness docks near London have had a population of 10,000 yellow scorpions for centuries<\/a>, since merchant ships brought them from continental Europe, but these harmless critters haven\u2019t spread because conditions aren\u2019t right.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n This is not to say climate change isn\u2019t affecting Europe\u2019s pest profile.<\/p>\n Termites\u2014long a problem in Mediterranean countries\u2014are munching their way into Northern Europe with rising temperatures, though the relative lack of timber buildings means they\u2019re unlikely to cause widespread economic harm there.<\/p>\n Aedes<\/em> mosquitoes\u2014the genus which includes tiger mosquitoes\u2014are well established in Italy, and getting there in France, which means countries like Switzerland are unlikely to be spared.<\/p>\n \u201cEurope is already seeing how climate change is creating more favorable conditions for invasive mosquitoes to spread into previously unaffected areas,\u201d European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control director Andrea Ammon told<\/a> the BBC.<\/p>\n Fortunately, these are not the kind that carry malaria\u2014that\u2019s the Anopheles<\/em>, which is unlikely to spread into Europe due to the absence of large bodies of standing water that\u2014unlike Aedes<\/em>\u2014it needs to breed.<\/p>\n Jonathan Raa\/NurPhoto via Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The same can\u2019t be said for Asian hornets<\/a> which, depending on where you live, could soon be coming to a picnic near you. \u201cThey\u2019re moving through France pretty easily, and there have been instances of them overwintering in the U.K., which means we\u2019ve probably got these now, so make your peace with it,\u201d Green says.<\/p>\n Then there are bed bugs. Even before the recent surge, infestations were costing the French economy \u20ac230 million ($246 million) annually, according to health agency Anses<\/a>. Callouts can set back hotels thousands of dollars in treatments<\/a> and lost income, and could create hysteria and panic through the Paris Olympics.<\/p>\n Nathan Laine\/Bloomberg via Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/div>\n These six-legged vampires may have been there all along, but they do prefer warmer weather.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen the temperature inside your house is 25 to 26 degrees Celsius (77 to 78.8 Fahrenheit), it takes only five days for the bed bug eggs to hatch. In normal conditions, when the temperature is around 20 degrees Celsius, it takes 10 days,\u201d entomologist and National Institute for the Study and Fight Against Bedbugs cofounder Jean-Michel B\u00e9renger told Wired<\/em> during the height of the panic last year<\/p>\n Whether helped by rising temperatures or not, the pests we\u2019re likely to see more of are the ones that are best adapted to humans and our behavior\u2014and it is our behavior that is helping them to spread.<\/p>\n In rural settings this is most often through monocultural agriculture, though sometimes all it takes is a penchant for importing non-native plants.<\/p>\n The oak processionary moth\u2014a species endemic to Southern Europe, which damages forests and releases hairs that can irritate skin, eyes and airways\u2014established a foothold<\/a> in the U.K. in the 2000s, when an oak was shipped from Europe. Ironically, it happened very close to the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew, where authorities monitor such things.<\/p>\n Stefan Puchner\/picture alliance via Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/div>\n It\u2019s the urban pests you\u2019re more likely to notice, however.<\/p>\n Rats, mice, cockroaches and the like all share characteristics that make them ideally suited to living intimately with humans, whether we want them to or not. They\u2019re small, capable of crawling through tight spaces, generally dark and nocturnal, making them hard to spot. Crucially, they\u2019re also omnivorous.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re massively flexible, so they won\u2019t care about one or two degrees [change in temperature]. They\u2019re already living in air conditioned buildings,\u201d says Rentokil\u2019s Green. \u201cSome moths in warehouses barely fly these days. They don\u2019t have to. They\u2019ve just been living in a world full of food, getting moved around by humans. It\u2019s a hell of a life.\u201d<\/p>\n Sometimes it\u2019s a well-intentioned or necessary change in human behavior that helps urban pests to proliferate.<\/p>\n Media frenzy aside, bed bug populations did<\/em> rapidly increase around the world in the early 21st century. In Australia<\/a>, the rise was between 500% and 4,500%; in New York City, bed bug complaints to the council jumped from 537 in 2004 to 10,985 in 2009, although they have since dropped<\/a>.<\/p>\n Entomologists attribute<\/a> the resurgence to the end of the DDT era\u2014the infamous insecticide dramatically cut global insect pest numbers in the mid to late 20th century, before serious environmental and health concerns ended its use, and species started to develop resistance. In essence, we\u2019re returning to historical norms from a period of unusually low insect activity.<\/p>\n Don\u2019t expect this to change. Although the pest control industry is deploying increasingly sophisticated monitoring strategies and \u2018physical\u2019 interventions, such as steam cleaning rooms with bed bugs, moving away from chemical controls means we lose what had been a powerful weapon against infestation.<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/GettyImages-809271918-e1718966213183.jpg?w=1440&q=75\"\/)
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What climate change is doing to Europe\u2019s pest population<\/h2>\n
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How Europe\u2019s pests are changing beyond climate change<\/h2>\n
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