Omar Akbari, an associate professor of cell and developmental biology at UC San Diego, admits he loses sleep thinking about the next pandemic, and how it could be so much worse than COVID-19.

“When COVID first happened, labs quickly tested to see if it could be borne by mosquitoes,” he told me. “Thankfully, it wasn’t. But imagine if it was.”

If so, the global death toll “could have been tenfold, a hundredfold worse,” Akbari said. That is, instead of looking at nearly 4 million COVID-19 fatalities worldwide, as is now the case, we’d be looking at as many as 400 million dead.

“It’s a scary thought,” said Akbari, one of the country’s foremost mosquito researchers. “Mosquitoes are the ultimate pathogen-transmission machines. They’re really, really good at it.”

A circuitous path led me to his doorstep. I came across a press release from the pest-control company Terminix.

It featured a list of “the top cities in the United States that were most interested in finding out more about mosquitoes,” based on internet searches last year.

What got my attention was that the top city for mosquito queries wasn’t a destination built on swamp land, such as Chicago, New Orleans and, I suspect, all of Florida.

It was Bakersfield, Calif.

Then I found a recent press release from another pest control business, Orkin, naming Los Angeles as the most mosquito-infested city in the country.

That puts L.A. ahead of boggier metropolises such as Atlanta — the most mosquito-infested city for the previous seven years — Washington and Dallas.

Intrigued, I decided to reach out to mosquito experts to find out if California in general and L.A. in particular are facing a mosquito menace perhaps few of us may be aware of.

The answer, I’m sorry to say, is yes. And its name is Aedes aegypti.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Aedes mosquito, also known as the yellow fever mosquito, is the main type of mosquito that spreads Zika, dengue, chikungunya and other viruses.

“Because Aedes aegypti mosquitoes live near and prefer to feed on people, they are more likely to spread these viruses than other types of mosquitoes,” the CDC warned.

And here’s the bad news: The tropical Aedes mosquito is believed to have settled in California in 2013, likely after arriving aboard a cargo ship. It’s been thriving, and spreading, ever since.

“The danger that poses is significant,” Akbari said. “Unlike other mosquitos, which may only come out at dusk, Aedes is a daytime mosquito and it likes to feed on humans.”

You’ll know it when you see it. It’s a dark, Darth Vadery-looking insect with white bands.

Anthony A. James, a professor of molecular biology and biochemistry at UC Irvine, told me the Aedes mosquito previously had a tough time gaining a foothold in California “because winters were cool and long enough to challenge their survival.”

“As things have warmed up, it is not as challenging for them,” he said. “Combining this with the human-driven availability of water from landscaping, agricultural use and small containers in yards, we have essentially created an ideal environment for them.”

Thanks, climate change.

David Lazarus, a Los Angeles Times columnist, writes on consumer issues.