Prior to the Columbian Exchange, deadly Anopheles and Aedes mosquitoes had not yet penetrated the Americas. While pulsating vivacious mosquito populations thrived in the Americas, they were disease-free, and were nothing more than irksome, itchy pests. The Western Hemisphere remained quarantined and free from the forces of foreign occupation for the time being. Since their arrival in the Americas at least 20,000 years ago, at the onset of permanent European contact in 1492, the roughly 100 million indigenous residents had not yet been subjected to her scourge nor witnessed her wrath and so
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