Ah, mosquitoes, the insects that are universally hated the world over. These pesky, disease-carrying pests
make a living by sucking the blood out of just about
anything that moves, including us. But take a moment
to look at things from the mosquito's perspective –
it's a pretty interesting life. 1. Mosquitoes are the deadliest animals on
Earth. That's right, more deaths are associated with mosquitoes than any other animal on the planet. Continue Reading Below Mosquitoes may carry any number of deadly
diseases, including malaria, dengue fever, yellow
fever, and encephalitis. Mosquitoes also carry
heartworm, which can be lethal to your dog. 2. Only female mosquitoes bite humans and
animals; males feed on flower nectar. Mosquitoes mean nothing personal when they take
your blood. Female mosquitoes need protein for their
eggs, and must take a blood meal in order to
reproduce. Since males don't bear the burden of
producing young, they'll avoid you completely and
head for the flowers instead. See Also: Effective Mosquito Control And when not trying to produce eggs, females are
happy to stick to nectar, too. 3. Some mosquitoes don't bite humans,
preferring other hosts like amphibians or
birds. Not all mosquito species feed on people. Some
mosquitoes specialize on other animals, and are no
bother to us at all. Culiseta melanura, for example,
bites birds almost exclusively, and rarely bites
humans. Another mosquito species, Uranotaenia
sapphirina, is known to feed on reptiles and amphibians. 4. Mosquitoes fly at speeds between 1 and 1.5
miles per hour. That might sound fast, but in the insect world, mosquitoes are actually rather slow. Continue Reading Below If a race were held between all the flying insects,
nearly every other contestant would beat the pokey
mosquito. Butterflies, locusts, and honey bees would all finish well ahead of the skeeter. 5. A mosquito's wings beat 300-600 times per
second. This would explain that irritating buzzing sound you
hear just before a mosquito lands on you and bites. 6. Mosquito mates synchronize their wing
beats to perform a lover's duet. Scientists once thought that only male mosquitoes
could hear the wing beats of their potential mates,
but recent research on Aedes aegypti mosquitoes
proved females listen for lovers, too. When the male
and female meet, their buzzing synchronizes to the
same speed. 7. Salt marsh mosquitoes may travel up to 100
miles from their larval breeding habitat. Most mosquitoes emerge from their watery breeding
ground and stay pretty close to home. But some, like
the salt marsh mosquitoes, will fly lengthy distances
to find a suitable place to live, with all the nectar and
blood they could want to drink. 8. All mosquitoes require water to breed.
Some species can breed in puddles left after a
rainstorm. Just a few inches of water is all it takes for a female
to deposit her eggs. Tiny mosquito larva develop
quickly in bird baths, roof gutters, and old tires
dumped in vacant lots. If you want to keep
mosquitoes under control around your home, you
need to be vigilant about dumping any standing water every few days . 9. An adult mosquito may live 5-6 months. Few probably make it that long, given our tendency
to slap them silly when they land on us. But in the
right circumstances, an adult mosquito has quite a
long life expectancy, as bugs go. 10. Mosquitoes can detect carbon dioxide from
75 feet away. Carbon dioxide, which humans and other animals
produce, is the key signal to mosquitoes that a
potential blood meal is near. They've developed a keen sensitivity to CO2 in the air. Once a female senses CO2 in the vicinity, she flies back and forth
through the CO2 plume until she locates her victim

Hmm.scary