165142 20251212165958.0 doi 10.1126/science.ady4515 sideral 146627 ART-2025-146627 eng Haba, Yuki Ancient origin of an urban underground mosquito 2025 Understanding how life is adapting to urban environments represents an important challenge in evolutionary biology. In this work, we investigate a widely cited example of urban adaptation, Culex pipiens form molestus, also known as the London Underground mosquito. Population genomic analysis of ~350 contemporary and historical samples counters the popular hypothesis that molestus originated belowground in London <200 years ago. Instead, we show that molestus first adapted to human environments aboveground in the Mediterranean or Middle East over the course of more than 1000 years, possibly in association with ancient agricultural civilizations of the Middle East. Our results highlight the role of early human society in priming taxa for contemporary urban evolution. They also provide insight into whether and how molestus contributes to West Nile virus transmission in modern cities. info:eu-repo/semantics/closedAccess All rights reserved http://www.europeana.eu/rights/rr-f/ info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion PipPop Consortium Korlevic, Petra McAlister, Erica Lawniczak, Mara K. N. Schumer, Molly Rose, Noah H. McBride, Carolyn S. Ruiz Arrondo, Ignacio Universidad de Zaragoza (orcid)0000-0001-8198-8118 Delacour, Sarah A. Universidad de Zaragoza (orcid)0000-0001-7046-2997 1009 773 Universidad de Zaragoza Dpto. Patología Animal Área Sanidad Animal 390, 6771 (2025), 14 Sci. Science 0036-8075 6906716 http://zaguan.unizar.es/record/165142/files/texto_completo.pdf Versión publicada 3040008 http://zaguan.unizar.es/record/165142/files/texto_completo.jpg?subformat=icon icon Versión publicada oai:zaguan.unizar.es:165142 articulos driver 2025-12-12-14:43:37 ARTICLE