11 Interesting Facts About Mosquito
Many people like the summer season as the days are warm. But there is only one reason you cannot enjoy your summer days: mosquitoes. The word mosquito means small fly in Spanish and Portuguese. There are almost 3600 species of mosquitoes.
Mosquitoes have three pairs of legs, and they have long mouth parts as well for sucking blood. Mosquitoes belong to the class Insecta and their family in the animal kingdom is Culicidae. Excited to learn more? Continue reading this article as it has various interesting and lesser-known mosquito facts.
Basic Mosquito Facts
Name:
The common name of this blood-sucking organism is Mosquito.
Scientific Classification
Mosquito is an animal, hence, belongs to the kingdom Animalia. Their species is Arthropoda.
Latin Name
The Latin name of these little flies is Culicidae. Mosquito means little flies in Spanish.
Appearance
Mosquitoes have very narrow bodies. The shape of a mosquito’s body is oval. They are usually gray colored.
Common Mosquito Types
Common mosquito types include Marsh Mosquito, Aedes Mosquito, Yellow Fever Mosquito, Aedes Vexans, Culex Quinquefasciatus, Southern House mosquito, and many other types.
Size And Weight
The size of a mosquito ranges from 0.1-0.4 inches which is quite small. Some of the species of mosquito weigh just 2.5 milligrams.
Habitat And Range
Some mosquitoes also live near people. However, all mosquitoes like water and prefer to live in areas with very little water flow.
Diet
Almost all kinds of mosquitoes feed on nectar and plants sap. But female mosquitoes require human blood to nourish their eggs.
Life Expectancy
Male mosquitoes usually live for about 5 to 7 days. However, female mosquitoes can even live up to months only if they have an adequate food supply.
11 Interesting Mosquito Facts
1. Only Female Mosquitoes Bite
Do you know that male mosquitoes never bite because they do not need blood to survive? They usually survive by eating plant sap. When we talk about female mosquitoes, they also survive by eating plant sap, but they need human blood for the proper nourishment of their eggs. They use protein and fibers present in our blood so that they can lay good-quality eggs.
2. Mosquitoes: Deadliest Animals
It will be hard for you to believe that mosquitoes are one of the deadliest animals present on this earth. Many animals kill humans, but when we talk about mosquitoes, the number of humans killed by mosquitoes is insanely high. Mosquitoes infect many people with dengue and malaria every day. Many people die due to infections caused by mosquitoes.
If a mosquito bites a person and transfers the infection into him, then another normal mosquito that bites the same person, becomes infected, and so on. In this way, mosquitoes spread the infection.
3. Mosquitoes Love Carbon Dioxide
Mosquitoes are addicted to carbon dioxide. They use special organ maxillary pulp to sense carbon dioxide released by our breath to reach us and suck our blood. It can also sense temperature changes; it knows when a sweet blood-filled human is nearby.
4. Mosquito Seem Greedy
We know that female mosquitoes suck human blood to nourish their eggs, but they can drink far more blood than you think. The average female mosquito can drink three times its body weight.
5. Mosquitoes Can’t Live Too Long
You should never worry that a single mosquito will irritate you for a very long time. It is found that a male mosquito can only live a maximum of up to 1 week. At the same time, the female mosquitoes which suck blood can live up to a maximum of three months.
6. Mosquitoes Don’t Bite Only Humans
As discussed earlier, female mosquitoes suck human blood for their eggs, but sometimes they also suck blood from frogs or dogs.
7. Mosquitoes Are More Attracted To Some People
Many factors decide whether mosquitoes will be attracted to you or your friend. Some of these factors include the color you are wearing, your sweat, if you have consumed alcohol recently or not etc.
After drinking alcohol, the ethanol percentage in your sweat increases, which attracts mosquitoes a lot. Also, after drinking alcohol, your body temperature rises, and mosquitoes have special sensors to sense temperature. Therefore, they are attracted to people with high body temperature.
8. It’s Her Spit That Causes Itching
When mosquitoes bite, there is an annoying itching; the saliva of female mosquitoes causes this. When it bites, it spits and gives you a kind of an anesthetic to numb the spot to avoid blood clotting. She is now done with her meal when you feel her pulling out its sting.
9. Wings Of Mosquitoes Cause Buzzing Sounds
When a mosquito comes near, you can hear a buzzing sound. This is because the rapid beating of the mosquitoes’ wings. Mosquitoes beat their wings 300 to 600 times per second . Therefore, mosquitoes produce a high-pitched sound due to this very high wing beating speed which can be heard when it comes near your ear.
10. Water Is A Very Essential Thing For Breeding
The mosquito lays her eggs in water for the proper growth of eggs. Therefore, even a single inch of water can do a great job. Hence, if you want mosquitoes to stay away from your home, you must clean up standing water everywhere in and around your house
11. Mosquitoes Are As Old As Dinosaurs
Mosquitoes are around more than 210 million years old. Female mosquitoes can lay up to 200 eggs, and they have a small life span that makes their survival rate higher . They can exist for such a long time due to their evolution according to the climate and weather of the Earth.
They can also go into hibernation when needed. They shut down at temperatures less than 50 . Some adult female species can find holes during the cold weather to protect themselves from the cold, and can live for six months.
Conclusion
Although it feels nice to learn about these little pests, mosquitoes cause many deaths and damage human health.. Therefore, mosquitoes are always avoided to stay safe from the deadly infections caused by them. We hope you learned several unknown mosquito facts from this article.