Dr Pierre Guillet, of the World Health Organization Global Malaria Programme, said the mosquito population had proved itself veryadaptive, and responsive to environmental change.
In December, Dr Mumma's team will begin another study of the Martian surface using the new technique of adaptive optics at the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile.
"Clearly the definitive abandonment of dependence on trees... has to count as one of the most radical shifts in adaptive zone ever made by any vertebrate since the very first tetrapod heaved itself out of water and on to terra firma, " he said.