Mosquitoes have been discovered in Iceland for the first time, a researcher told the AFP Monday. The volcanically active country has long been one of the world's few mosquito-free places.

Three Culiseta annulata mosquitoes, two females and one male, were sighted around 20 miles north of Reykjavik, the country's capital, according to Matthías Alfreðsson, an entomologist at the Natural Science Institute of Iceland.

"They were all collected from wine ropes... aimed at attracting moths," the researcher said in an email, referring to a method of adding sugar to heated wine and dipping ropes or strips of fabric into the solution, which are then hung outside to entice the sweet-toothed insects.

The Icelandic Monitor , a local paper, reported that the insects had been found in a residentia

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