Meet the Mosquito
She weighs about as much as a grain of sand. She was around when dinosaurs were. And she is the most dangerous animal on the planet. Here is how she works, and how you can beat her in your own yard.
Wild Facts
Mosquitoes are weird. And the weird parts are exactly what make them easy to beat. Every fact here comes from real scientists. You can find them listed at the bottom.
Some of these are big science words. When you see one, the green bit after it tells you how to say it out loud — like pupa . Say the CAPITAL part louder.
01 Only the females bite
Male mosquitoes drink nectar from flowers. They never bite anyone. The female bites because she needs blood to make her eggs. That is the only reason she wants you.
02 She smells your breath
When you breathe out, you puff out a gas called carbon dioxide . She can smell it from 35 metres away. That is longer than a basketball court. Then she follows the smell to you.
03 That buzz is her wings
Some mosquitoes flap their wings 600 times every second. The whine near your ear is the sound of wings moving too fast for you to see.
04 She is a bad flyer
Her top speed is about 1 mile per hour. That is slower than you walk. It is also why a box fan on the porch works so well. She cannot fly against the wind.
05 Her eggs float in a raft
She glues 100 to 300 eggs together into one floating raft. It is about as long as your fingernail is wide. It looks like a speck of dirt on the water.
06 Babies breathe through a snorkel
Baby mosquitoes hang upside down under the water. They breathe through a little tube on their tail called a siphon . Tap the water and they wiggle straight down.
07 One stage is called a tumbler
Before it becomes an adult, a mosquito turns into a pupa . People call it a tumbler because it tumbles away when you bother it. It eats nothing for two whole days.
08 Egg to adult in one week
It only takes 7 to 10 days to go from egg to flying adult. Forget about a bucket of water for two weeks and you have grown a whole batch by accident.
09 The deadliest animal alive
Sicknesses spread by mosquitoes kill about 725,000 people every year. That is more than sharks, snakes, and lions added together. Most of it is a disease called malaria , in hot countries far from here. It is carried by a different kind of mosquito than ours.
10 They saw the dinosaurs
The oldest mosquito ever found is trapped in amber. Amber is hardened tree sap. That one is about 99 million years old, so mosquitoes were biting things back when dinosaurs were alive.
11 A bottle cap is enough
She does not need a pond or a swamp. A bottle cap of water that sits still for a week is enough to raise babies in. That is why the hunt below works.
Egg to Bite in 10 Days
A mosquito does not grow up the way you do. It changes into a whole new shape four times. Follow the arrows:
1. Egg
Laid in a floating raft on still water. Warmer water means a faster hatch.
2. Larva
People call it a wiggler. It outgrows and sheds its skin four times.
3. Pupa
People call it a tumbler. It eats nothing at all while it changes.
4. Adult
It dries its wings and flies off. Then the females go looking for blood.
Why We Care in Doland
What it is, without the scary music
Some mosquitoes carry a germ called West Nile virus. The only way to get it is from a mosquito bite. You cannot catch it from a friend, a pet, or a doorknob.
Here is the honest part. About 4 out of 5 people who get it never feel sick and never even find out. About 1 in 5 feel like they have the flu, with a fever, a headache, and sore muscles. A small number get very sick and have to go to the hospital.
There is no shot for it and no medicine that cures it. So the only thing that really helps is fewer mosquitoes and fewer bites. South Dakota gets more West Nile than most states. That is why grown-ups here care so much about an old bucket of water.
The mosquito that carries it here has a name: Culex tarsalis . She comes out mostly at sunset and after dark. That is handy to know when you are deciding whether to put on bug spray before going outside.
Your Bottle-Cap Hunt
Grown-ups walk past standing water all summer and never see it. You are shorter than they are, and you are better at looking under things. That makes you really good at this job.
Print the Water Hunt checklistA one-page scorecard you can carry outside, tick off, and keep score on. Free to copy for a class or a club.The hunt · six steps
- Bring a grown-up. You find the water. They do any lifting, dumping, or treating.
- Go out the day after it rains. That is when hidden water shows up.
- Look for still water. If something has held water for a few days, it counts. Use the list below.
- Tip it and dump it. Pour the water out. Then turn the thing upside down so it cannot fill up again.
- Point out what you cannot dump. Big things like stock tanks, ponds, and clogged gutters are a grown-up job.
- Do it again next week. Mosquitoes need about a week to grow up. Beat them every week and they never get to finish.
The thirteen spots
Find each one in the picture, then go look for the real thing outside:
- 1 Bucket or pail
- 2 Old tire
- 3 Kiddie pool
- 4 Wheelbarrow
- 5 Flower pot saucer
- 6 Bird bath
- 7 Fold in a tarp
- 8 Toy left outside
- 9 Trash can lid
- 10 Puddle that never dries
- 11 Watering can
- 12 Pet water bowl
- 13 Clogged rain gutter
Rules to follow · read these first
1. Stay away from creeks, sloughs, dugouts, and ponds unless a grown-up is with you. Water like that is dangerous even when it looks shallow.
2. Do not drink, splash in, or play in trap water. It is gross on purpose. Just leave it alone.
3. Let grown-ups handle mosquito dunks. They are safe when used the right way, but that part is their job.
4. Do not touch or move anyone else's traps. And stay out of other people's yards unless they invited you.
5. Wear bug spray at sunset. Have a grown-up put it on you and read the label first.
Check Yourself
Read the whole page? Prove it. Eight questions, and you can try as many times as you like.
Do all mosquitoes bite people?
No. Only the females bite. Males drink nectar from flowers their whole lives. A female bites because she needs blood to make her eggs.
How long does it take an egg to turn into a flying adult?
About 7 to 10 days in warm water. That is why dumping water once a week works. You stop them before they can finish growing up.
How much water does a mosquito need?
About a bottle cap full, sitting still for a week. She does not need a pond or a creek. A toy left out in the yard works just fine for her.
Why does a box fan keep mosquitoes away?
Because they are slow. They only fly about 1 mile per hour. Moving air is faster than they are, so they cannot get through it to reach you.
Where do three of the four life stages happen?
In water. The egg, the larva , and the pupa all live in water. Only the adult flies. That one fact is why dumping water beats every gadget ever invented.
Are mosquitoes really the deadliest animal on Earth?
Yes, and it is not close. Sicknesses spread by mosquitoes kill about 725,000 people every year. Most of those are from malaria in hot countries far away, spread by a different kind of mosquito. The one we worry about here carries West Nile virus.
What is the single best thing you can do?
Dump standing water. Not a zapper, not a gadget, not a bat house. Just pour out the water where they grow. It is free, it takes about fifteen minutes, and it works better than anything you can buy.
Where These Facts Come From
Every number on this page came from one of these. If you are doing a school project, these are the ones to list: