MOSQUITOES
Insect    
Picture
ANOPHELES MOSQUITO
The females of many species of mosquitoes are blood-consuming.  During feeding, some transmit harmful diseases - to both humans and animals.  

The Anopheles Mosquito
  • The most dangerous creature on Earth
  • Causes more than 300 million cases of Malaria annually
  • Causes 1 - 3 million deaths annually

Some of the diseases transmitted by mosquitoes:
*   Malaria
*   Yellow Fever
*   Elephantiasis
COLLECTIVE NOUNS
1.   A scourge of mosquitoes
2.   A swarm of mosquitoes
3.   An infestation of mosquitoes
SOME MOSQUITO TRIVIA
  • A mosquito lives for approximately 20 days.
  • Most mosquitoes fly less than a mile during their lifetime, but the ferocious salt-marsh mosquito - found in the Everglades and other coastal locations - can migrate 75 - 100 miles.
  • Malaria parasites have evolved resistance to Chloroquine ... and then to several successor drugs.  This plant-derived medicine kills the parasites before they gain a foothold in their victim.
  • Increase in travel and international trade has moved drug-resistant parasites around the world.
  • There are approximately 2,700 species of mosquitoes, and more than 50 species are resistant to at least one insecticide.
  • The male mosquito never sucks blood - he drinks nectar - and the females drink more often than necessary.
  • Mosquito saliva and rat poison both contain anti-coagulants ... chemicals that prevent the blood from clotting.
  • A mosquito has 47 teeth!
  • The female mosquito will drink about 5-milllionths of a litre of blood in one sitting.
  • A mosquito weighs about 2 - 2.5 milligrams (for an Aedes aegypti).
  • A stiff breeze will keep the mosquitoes at bay.  
  • Mosquitoes can fly at an estimated 1 - 1.5 miles per hour.
  • Bug zappers do work.  However, several critics say these zappers fry more beneficial insects than harmful ones, including the insects that eat mosquitoes.
  • Swallows, Purple Martins, Bats and some predatory insects, enjoy a good meal of mosquitoes.  The ecological approach could be to put up a bat-house.  Bats gobble hundreds of mosquitoes each hour!
  • A mosquito needs stagnant water to lay eggs.
  • A mosquito can survive at sea level and up to altitudes as high as 10,800 feet (3,600 meters).
  • Mosquitoes find you by sight - observing movement - and the infra-red radiation emitted by warm bodies.
  • A mosquito can smell a new host from between 20 - 25 meters away.
  • Some people are unusually attractive to mosquitoes, depending upon one or more of the 300-odd chemicals produced by the skin.
  • Aside from skin chemicals, mosquitoes have other ways of finding you - they can detect both carbon dioxide and lactic acid (produced by metabolism in your muscles) in your breath.
  • Mosquitoes prefer blondes and vegetarians.  They are attracted to one of the chemicals released by the metabolism used for digesting vegetables.
  • Mosquitoes do not like Vitamin B or Iron.
  • Scientists have found a fossilised mosquito in North West Montana.  It was fossilised in amber and its belly was full of blood.
  • Mosquito repellents don't repel … they hide you by blocking the mosquitoes' sensors so that they don't know you are there 
  • Mosquitoes dislike Citronella because it irritates their feet
  • Mosquitoes are attracted to the colour blue and to people who have just eaten a banana!
If you are bitten by a mosquito, consider relieving the itch by rubbing the bite with any of the following:
  1. Alcohol
  2. A clove of garlic
  3. Vanilla essence
  4. Aloe Vera
  5. Table salt
  6. Lemon juice
  7. Cube of ice - but this will only last until the ice melts
  8. Tea Tree oil