Fun Facts About Mosquito
Fun Facts About Mosquito
1. Mosquitoes belong to a group of insects that requires blood to develop fertile eggs. Males do not lay eggs, thus, male mosquitoes do not bite. The females are the egg producers and "host-seek" for a blood meal. Female mosquitoes lay multiple batches of eggs and require a blood meal for every batch they lay.
2. Few people realize that mosquitoes rely on sugar as their main source of energy. Both male and female mosquitoes feed on plant nectar, fruit juices and liquids that ooze from plants. The sugar is burned as fuel for flight and is replenished on a daily basis. Blood is reserved for egg production and is imbibed less frequently.
3. Mosquitoes, like all insects, are cold blooded creatures. As a result, they are incapable of regulating body heat and their temperature is essentially the same as their surroundings. In tropical areas, mosquitoes are active year round. In temperate climates, adult mosquitoes become inactive with the onset of cool weather and enter hibernation to live through the winter. Some kinds of mosquitoes have winter hardy eggs and hibernate as embryos in eggs laid by the last generation of females in late summer. The eggs are usually submerged under ice and hatch in spring when water temperatures rise.
4. Although mosquitoes carry and transmit diseases, they are a fascinating insect.
5. Mosquitoes have been around for 100 million years.
6. There are approximately 2,700 species of mosquitoes in the world, and 170 species reside in North America.
7. All mosquitoes do not feed on blood. Only the female mosquito requires a blood meal for develop-
ment of her eggs.
8. One female mosquito may lay 100 to 300 eggs at one time and may average 1,000 to 3,000 offspring
during her lifespan.
9. Depending on the temperature, mosquitoes can develop from eggs to adults in four to seven days.
10. An adult mosquito can live as long as 5 months. It may take several months for a larva to develop to the
adult stage in cold water. Eggs of flood water mosquitoes may remain dormant for several years, and hatch when they are covered with water.
11. An adult female mosquito weighs only about 1/15,000 ounce (about 2.0 milligrams).
12. An adult female mosquito consumes about 5-millionths of a liter in a single blood meal.
13. A mosquito wing beats from 300 to 600 times per second.
14. Male mosquitoes find female mosquitoes by listening to the sound of their wings beating. The males can
actually identify the correct species by the pitch of the female’s wings.
15. Mosquitoes can fly about 1 to 1.5 miles per hour.
16. Most mosquitoes do not fly very far from their larval habitat, but the salt marsh mosquito migrates 75 to
100 miles over the course of its life.
17. A mosquito can smell the carbon dioxide you exhale from about 60 to 75 feet away.
18. Some people are more attractive to mosquitoes than others. It is not clear why, but probably has something to do with the 300 odd chemicals produced by the skin.
19. In the interest of science, Arctic researchers uncovered their chests, arms, and legs and reported as many as 9000 mosquito bites per person, per minute. At this rate, and unprotected human would lose one half of his blood supply in approximately 2 hours.
20.Mosquitoes dislike citronella because it irritates their feet.
21. The itch from a mosquito bite can be soothed by cutting open a clove of garlic and rubbing it on the bite.
22. Mosquitoes are attracted to the color blue more than any other color.
23. A mosquito can detect a moving target at 18 ft away.
24. Mosquitoes find new hosts 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).
25. HIV virus responsible for the AIDS infection is regarded as food to the mosquito and is digested along with the blood meal.
26. The average mosquito has 47 teeth.
27. They can’t survive at temperatures of 50 degrees and below.
28. Every 30 seconds, a child dies from malaria.
29. There are 4 types of malaria.
One of them, falciparum malaria, can cause severe malaria.
30. Some fish, such as mosquitofish, carps, and Tilapia, eat mosquito larvae.Dragonflies, and perhaps also birds, bats, and lizards also kill larvae.
31. Larvae can also be killed by surface films or by some chemicals such as methoprene that are toxic to mosquitoes.
32.Dengue is a mosquito-borne infection that causes a severe flu-like illness, and sometimes a potentially lethal complication called dengue haemorrhagic fever (DHF).
33. There are an estimated 50 000 0000 cases every year, with 500 000 cases of DHF and 22 000 deaths, mainly among children.
34. Global incidence of dengue has grown dramatically in recent decades and explosive outbreaks are occurring.
35. Before 1970 only 9 countries had experienced DHF epidemics, a number that had increased more
than four-fold by 1995 and is continuing to rise with 100 countries now being disease endemic.
36. About two fifths of the world's population in tropical and sub-tropical climates worldwide, mostly in urban and semi-urban areas, are now at risk.
37. There is no specific treatment for dengue, but appropriate medical care frequently saves the lives of patients with the more serious dengue haemorrhagic fever.
38. The only way to prevent dengue virus transmission is to combat the mosquito vectors.
39. Malaria is a preventable and curable disease, although resistance to all available forms of treatment has
emerged in some instances.
40. There were an estimated 881 000 malaria deaths , of which 91% were in Africa and 85% were of children under 5 years of age.
41. While some countries in Africa have achieved a 50% reduction in malaria cases since 2000, links between interventions and mortality and morbidity trends remain ambiguous in that region and elsewhere.
42.Access to malaria diagnosis and treatment, was inadequate in all countries surveyed despite a sharp increase in procurement of antimalarial medicines through public health services.
43. The WHO recommended focus for prevention and control is with long lasting insecticidal nets and artemisinin based combination therapy, plus a revival of support for indoor residual spraying of insecticide. Resistance to preferred insecticides for vector control is a huge challenge.
44. A French army doctor in Algeria,Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran, observed parasites inside red blood cells of malaria patients and proposed for the first time that a protozoan caused disease. He was awarded Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1907.
45. Asian Tiger Mosquitoes are considered great pests and dangerous vectors of human diseases.
46. Some of these diseases include: West Nile Virus- Causes irritation and inflammation of the brain -Chikungunya fever- extremely high fever's.
47. Asian tiger mosquitoes wing beats 300 to 600 times per second.
48. Global warming will likely increase the spread of this mosquito to areas where it previously may not have survived the winters.
50. Some Asian tiger mosquitoes have even been found in the high altitudes of some mountains! Due to its ability to adapt quickly.
51. In order to try to kill off the Asian tiger mosquito scientist found a cannibalistic Asian tiger mosquito and tried to breed it to see if the offspring mosquito will be a cannibal so far we do not know if it was successful.
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