How do mosquitos survive in a desert?

It's a rhetorical question.

23 June, a massive thunderstorm and the last notable rainfall we've seen. I'm not complaining really, these are endless, lazy, perfect summer days. We've had a few mornings of cloud cover which burned/blew off by mid-morning. Other than that, it's dry, dry, dry.

Grass that I mowed every third day last year - dashing out every time it was less than sopping wet - is brown and not growing. The hollyhocks are holding their own - an excellent drought resistant flower. The last of the red raspberry harvest shriveled on the cane (as usual, I didn't think about watering until it was too late.) I've started to water the apple - I don't want all the work I've done to go to waste for lack of hydration.

Still, I've been bitten twice on my right elbow and twice on my left ankle. These aren't normal mosquito bites - they blister and itch like the bedbugs's bites we suffered in our 'luxury' house on Crete. I think I saw a sknipa (I have no idea what they are called in anything other than Greek), a tiny, nearly invisible flying insect whose bite is excruciating. That's probably what got me - I actually don't know if they breed in water or just spring forth spontaneously from the footsteps of evil men. But I do know that the bite of a sknipa cannot be ignored. Even if you don't scratch, they scab over and if you have tissue paper skin like I do, the bites leave scars.

That's it. I can't believe the difference between this summer and last.