Q: How many species of
mosquitoes are there?
A: About 2,700.
Q: And how many are resistant
to at least one insecticide?
A: More than 50.
Q: What does a mosquito
weigh?
A: About 2 to 2.5
milligrams (for an Aedes aegypti).
Q: How much blood
does a female mosquito drink per, er, serving?
A: About 5-millionths of a
liter (for an Aedes aegypti).
Q: What happens if you cut
the sensory nerve in the mosquito's stomach?
A: The little whiner can
keep sucking blood until it bursts (oh, sweet justice!).
Q: How do mosquitoes find new
hosts?
A: By sight (they observe
movement); by detecting infra-red radiation emitted by warm bodies;
and by chemical signals (mosquitoes are attracted to carbon dioxide
and lactic acid, among other chemicals).
Q: How fast can a mosquito
fly?
A: An estimated 1 to 1.5
miles per hour.
Q: How far do certain
mosquitoes fly
A: Salt marsh mosquitoes
migrate 75 to 100 miles.
Q: How far away can a
mosquito smell you, or a cow or another host?
A: 20 to 35 meters.
Q: Don't you love being
called a "host"?
A: Not in this context.
Q: Why does a film of oil on
water kill mosquito larvae?
A: Because the oil clogs
up the snorkel that the larvae use to breathe.
Photo by Antoine Morin Jon Houseman, ©
BIODIDAC.
Q: What does mosquito saliva
have to do with some kinds of rat poison?
A: They both contain
anti-coagulants, chemicals that prevent the blood from clotting.
Q: When do mosquitoes feed?
A: Day-time. Night-time.
And all times in-between. Truthfully, some species prefer different
times of day or night. This behavior may have evolved to match the
host's behavior.
Q: Do they ever stop sucking
blood?
A: Yes. For starters,
males never suck blood. And females don't do it more often than
necessary, since it exposes them to (slap, slap) host "defensive
behaviors."
Q: So what's the advantage of
letting a mosquito drink its fill?
A: Because if you brush it
away too soon, it might come back for more.
