Billions of Scotland’s midges could have been frozen to death by the recent cold weather.

According to Dr Alison Blackwell of Edinburgh University’s Centre for Tropical Veterinary Medicine, who is a leading authority on the Highland midge, this coming summer may be a comparatively midge-free season, something that will be music to the ears of hillwalkers and backpackers.

Last year the cool spring followed by a spell of hot summer weather and backed-up by strong winds at key hatching times helped to beat down numbers of the biting insect down to record levels.

Now this winter’s low temperatures have killed off many populations of the Highland midge — Culicoides impunctatus — because the extreme cold penetrates deeper into the soil, according to Dr Blackwell. Midges typically hibernate at a depth of between 2cm and 5cm below the surface of the ground.

Previous winters have been mild, but this year’s has seen wide areas of midge-infested ground frozen since before Christmas.

“This weather will have an important impact on the summer population,” says Dr Blackwell. “I know a lot of people will be delighted that so many midges have died but we don’t want them to be killed off completely as it would upset the eco-system.

“We don’t want them all to disappear. People should not get too excited — insects survived the last Ice Age and were around long before humans.

“Midges are quite susceptible to the weather and their survival will go down in the wrong conditions for them. But they will not go away forever.

“Midges like warm and wet weather. They also need a blood meal within a week or they will not survive. But midges are very resilient. They will sit there in the ground waiting days for their meal.”

And according to Dr Blackwell, this news represents only a brief respite from the biting insects. “To get rid of them you would have to change Scotland’s landscape — and that is not going to happen. I am afraid they are here to stay.”

Edinburgh University’s midge forecast is to be revived this year, beginning at the end of May — just before the insect produces the season’s first hatch.