Fun Facts about Mosquitoes
1. Mosquitoes can smell you!
Yes, you heard it. Mosquitoes are attracted to smells we give off, especially carbon dioxide that we breathe out. This explains why mosquitoes manage to find you even in the dark.
2. Drinking beer makes you more attractive to mosquitoes
The little insects can sniff the CO2 in your breath and they are all the more drawn to you if you’re working out, or even drunk.
3. Type O-blood type is their favourite
When exposed to all kinds of blood groups, there’s a very good chance that mosquitoes will choose Type O blood over everything else. Wonder why you become a mosquito magnet out of all the people? Well, blame your blood type.
4. George Washington contracted malaria as a teen. He experienced hearing loss from quinine toxicity during his presidency.
5. An adult female mosquito weighs only about 1/15,000th of an ounce (about 2.0 milligrams)
6. The salt marsh mosquito migrates 75 to 100 miles over the course of its lifetime!
7. They are mainly attracted to your sweat
8. You know, #Mosquitoes can survive rain drops even though it being three times heavier than their total weight. It is just like a human getting it by a bus!
8. InMinnesota, every day is World Mosquito Day!
9. World Mosquito Day is celebrated 20th of August every year. Some persons believe we are celebrating merciless killers
10. Mosquito bites on your toes are the worst and this is a fact! It is irritating.
11. Sir Ronald Ross made the discovery that mosquitoes transmit malaria.
12. Mosquitoes start life as aquatic, but cannot swim as adults.
13. When we look at mosquitoes, there are >100genera & >3000species. Those that carry & transmit disease are called vectors. Anopheles, Aedes & Culex are the most common mosquito vector species.
14. Male mosquitoes – do not bite or suck blood (#vegan), have bushy antennae, have slender bodies ….but have shorter life spans.
15. Female mosquitoes – mate once in their lifetime & store sperm for life in an organ called a spermatheca -bite & feed on blood to develop their eggs (often several times) -don’t just feed on humans -are attracted to CO2 & temperature.
16. Mosquitoes do not transmit hepatitis B, Hepatitis C or HIV
17. Apart from malaria, mosquito transmits about 15 other diseases.
18. Did you know that #mosquitoes are the deadliest animals in the world for humans? In fact, each year, approximately 1 million people die from a mosquito-related illness.
19. Malaria is caused by a parasite that lives in mosquitoes.
20. Bananas can reduce the swelling and irritation of mosquito bites.
21. Mosquitos don’t just bite you. They also urinate on you after sucking your blood.
22. Mosquitoes have killed more humans than all the wars in history combined.
23. Mosquitoes are attracted to the color of blue twice as much as to any other color.
24. Mosquito repellents don’t repel, they hide you. The spray blocks the mosquito‘s sensors so they don’t know you are there.
25. Mosquitoes prefer biting people who are drunk.
26. A mosquito can absorb one and a half times its own weight in blood.
27. Mosquitoes only suck blood when they’re pregnant.
28. If a mosquito is biting you, and you flex that muscle, it will explode.
29. Mosquitoes have teeth and they are 47 in number
30. It would take 1,200,000 mosquitoes all sucking at the same time to completely drain the average human of blood.
31. You can stop mosquito bites from itching just by running the bite under hot water.
32. Elephants can move their skin to crush mosquitoes between their rolls of skin.
33. Mosquitoes are more attracted to people with stinky feet.
34. Female mosquitos will obtain blood from humans, but only to nourish their eggs.Their food actually consists of nectar & other plant juices.
35. Mosquitoes can fly through rain drops without getting hit.
36. Mosquitos are attracted to the color blue the most.
37. Research indicates that mosquitoes are attracted to people who have recently eaten bananas
38. The average life span of a mosquito is two weeks
39. Your pets also suffer mosquito bites
40. When they become desperate, mosquitoes can puncture through your clothes to suck your blood.
41. They are vampires.
42. When the female mosquito penetrates your skin, it injects saliva. It is the saliva that itches and irritates you after the bite.
43. The saliva of these tiny vampires contains anticoagulants
44. Mosquito is often called “the most dangerous animal in the world.
45. The is a mention of mosquitoes in the Holy Quran.
46. Only 1 percent of mosquito species carry diseases
49. From history, there was once a Nigerian political party that used the Mosquito as their symbol. The colonial government banned the party.
56. Mosquitoes are more attracted to certain people than others. Some people produce more of certain chemicals in their skin and a few of those chemicals, like lactic acid, attract mosquitoes. So, you know… Don’t work out. You will be a target
57. “I hate mosquitoes. The diseases they spread kill more than half a million people every year. In fact, mosquitoes kill more people in one day than sharks kill in 100 years” – Bill Gates on Facts about mosquitoes in 2018
58. As one of the funny facts about mosquitoes : On the Ile de Re, in the south of France, donkeys are traditionally dressed in fashionable trousers to stop mosquitoes biting their legs.
59. The mosquito in amber in Jurassic Park was actually a crane fly.
60. Do you know? Iceland is the only country without mosquitoes, snakes or other reptiles.
61. When are we going to accept the fact that Vampires exist in form of mosquitoes?
62. Asingle bat can eat 1,000+ mosquitoes in just one hour, helping to keep you bite and disease-free.
63. According to Spectator Index,
Number of humans killed by animals, 2015.
Mosquitoes: 830,000
Snakes: 60,000
Dogs: 17,400
Scorpions: 3,500
Bees: 60
Jellyfish: 40
Sharks: 6
63. Mosquitoes can slow metabolism, like hibernating bears.
64. Mosquitos are weak fliers that can only reach speeds of about 1 mph, so the breeze from a small electric fan is enough to keep them away.
65. In 2016, a Nigerian surgeon, Dr Bayo Aluko-Olokun who discovered that the adult human facial sebum (oil) prevents mosquitoes.
66. Bacteria, eg Wolbachia bacteria are used to control mosquito populations; they do not infect humans.
67. Mosquitoes are nature’s way of fighting nudity!
68. Africa’s deadliest animal is not lions, cheetahs or rhinos… but mosquitoes
69. Mosquito bite? Press a *hot* spoon onto the spot. The heat will destroy the protein that caused the reaction and the itching will stop.
70. Chinese people get twice as many mosquito bites than any other race because the mosquitoes get hungry again in half an hour.
71. There is a “mosquito laser” that can recognize and shoot mosquitoes out of the air.
72. Mosquitos can mate in about 15 seconds
73. Consuming just a single 12-ounce bottle of beer can make you more attractive to mosquitoes.
74. Paparazzi means “buzzing mosquito” in Italian.
75. Take vitamin B complex during the summer. Insects don’t like the way it makes you smell to them, it wards off mosquitos and biting flies.
76. Female mosquitoes can lay up to 300 eggs at a time.
77. Mosquitoes survive collisions with raindrops by clinging to the droplet and riding it for a while.
78. To get rid of itch from mosquito bites, try applying soap on the area and you will experience instant relief.
79. The word malaria comes from the Italian “mala aria” (bad air), as we did not always understand it was spread via mosquito bites.
80. Mosquitoes prefer children to adults, blondes to brunettes.
81. Mosquitoes may or may not be attracted to hot tubs.
On facts about mosquitoes, I drop my pen here.
Sources:
Wikipedia
Nation
