For the fugitive mosquitoes from Africa and Europe, the journey across the middle passages of the Atlantic Ocean was an all-inclusive, two-to-three-month cruise vacation offering an all-you-can-eat buffet and an orgy of breeding in the plentiful and readily available cisterns and casks of welcoming water. They arrived at an untarnished virgin environment in the Americas on board the first European ships, steered by one of the most celebrated and vilified characters in history—Christopher Columbus.
