It is being called a ‘super’ mosquito and it could be a serious reversal in the fight against malaria.

“It’s ‘super’ with respect to its ability to survive exposure to the insecticides on treated bed nets,” said Gregory Lanzaro, a medical entomologist and professor at the Universty of California, Davis. Professor Lanzaro led the research team that is studying this species emerging from Mali. His team published their findings on the January 6 in the Proceedings of the national Academy of Sciences.

The study contains convincing evidence that the introduction of a man-made change in the environment of the malaria-carrying mosquitos has altered their evolutionary relationships. That man-made change is the mosquito nets treated with insecticides. These nets are used widely throughout the region. Indeed, they are often cited as having contributed greatly to the global effort to reduce the spread of the disease.

The super-mosquito is a hybrid between two malaria-carrying mosquitos: Anopheles gambiae and Anopheles coluzzii. While scientist originally considered the two varying forms of A. gambiae, they have since discovered that the two mosquitos are different in species.

The hybrid came about through an evolutionary process known as adaptive introgression. This gene swapping mechanism began to occur as the number of mosquito nets treated with insecticide increased, according to the study.

Insecticide resistance has been observed for some time. Moreover, it is well known that species adapt over the course of many generations to overcome introduced obstacles. The threat is that the disease-carrying mosquitos are now adapting faster than we can.

“Recently it has reached a level at some localities in Africa where it is resulting in the failure of the nets to provide meaningful control,” said Professor Lanzaro. “It is my opinion that this will increase.”

The World Health Organization cites increased disease control as one of the factors that has led to the dramatic decrease in the number of malarial deaths. Between 2000 and 2013, global malaria deaths has fallen by 47 percent, according to the WHO’s 2014 annual report.

Several other insecticides are currently in development including the use of bacteria or fungi to kill mosquitos. There is also research of genetic treatments to manipulate the genes of the mosquitos to prevent them from spreading the disease. There is a pressing need for new malaria control strategies if the disease is to be completely eradicated.