Mosquitoes – insects that are hated the world over are known as disease carrying pests that make a living by sucking the blood out of just about anything that moves, including humans.
Sure, we all know they’re annoying and are considered nuisance but mosquitoes in their own world mean nothing personal as they struggle to make a living, after all they need protein for their eggs and must take a blood meal in order to reproduce.
Interesting Facts About Mosquitoes
Let’s take a moment to look at things from the poor mosquitoes’ perspective – it’s an interesting life.
- Mosquitoes buzz around our heads and there’s a reason for that. Female mosquitoes feed on blood. They prefer O-type blood, people with high body heat, pregnant women, and heavy breathers.
- They can sense Carbon dioxide (CO2) from up to 100 feet away and carbon dioxide is the key indicator that a blood meal is near. Since human beings exhale carbon dioxide through the nose and mouth, mosquitoes prefer to buzz around hence leading to more incidents of self-slapping while sleeping.
- The word mosquito is the Spanish and Portuguese word for “little fly”.
- There are over 3,500 known species of mosquitoes worldwide
- Only female mosquitoes bite humans and animals, males don’t bear the burden of producing young ones so they’ll avoid you completely and head for the flowers instead and feed on nectar.
- Mosquitoes fly continuously at a speed between 1 and 1.5 miles per hour. That might sound fast but in the insect world, mosquitoes are actually very slower than butterflies and bees are faster.
- Mosquitoes can beat their wings between 400 and 600 times per second! I’m sure you’ll agree this explains the annoying buzz we hear in our ears before a mosquito lands and bites.
- A male mosquito finds female mosquitoes by listening to the sound of their wings beating. The male can actually identify the correct species by the pitch of the female’s wings and guess what? Female mosquitoes listens for lovers too.
- When it comes to life span, female mosquitoes live for 2 weeks to a month; males live for just a week. An adult mosquito may live 5-6 months but very few make it that long, given our tendencies to slap them when they land on us.
- When a female mosquito feeds on blood, the abdomen expands and can hold up blood 3 times its own weight.
Also Read: What you should know About Malaria and how to protect yourself
As tiny as they are, mosquitoes are so deadly. More deaths are associated with mosquitoes than any other animal on the planet as they carry any number of deadly diseases including malaria, dengue fever, yellow fever, etc.
A single malaria mosquito can infect more than 100 people and according to the World Health Organization, malaria kills a child every 60 seconds in Africa.
Also Read: Full list of the top ten most venomous snakes in the world
Wouldn’t you rather prevent yourself from health dangers mosquitoes can cause? You can add to the list more interesting facts about mosquitoes using the comment box below.
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