Many go to great lengths to avoid mosquitoes.
For many the fun of being outdoors in the warm weather is tainted, at least a bit, by the ever looming fear of mosquito bites. These tiny insects are mightier than their size would seem to indicate. Not only can they do what they are famous for, leaving bite victims with itchy welts, they can also spread an assortment of blood-borne illnesses, making them highly problematic in some of the countries where they are most prevalent.
Development
Unlike humans who take years to reach maturity, mosquitoes advance from egg to adult in a short window of 10 to 14 days. This fast development makes it easy for mosquitoes to quickly fill an area in no time at all.
Feeding Habits
If you receive an itchy mosquito bite, it is a female that is to blame. Females are the only ones who feed off of human and animal blood. Their male counterparts subsist on a diet containing nothing but plant juices.
Prey Selection
A mosquito identifies her human pray from afar. Mosquitoes can smell living prey from 50 meters away or even more if the individual being targeted happens to produce large amounts of carbon dioxide. Pregnant women, for example, produce more carbon dioxide than the average individual and may be more attractive and easily sniffed out than other potential bite victims.
Habitat Selection
Mosquitoes prefer a moist environment. Many make their homes in soft soils or stagnant water. Because this is their preferred habitat, mosquito infestations are quite common around water that doesn't move, such as natural bays or even wading pools.
Mating
To reproduce, the female mosquito lays eggs that the male mosquito must then fertilize. To lay these eggs, females must first dine on a blood meal. Often they get this meal at night, filling up on blood from a human or other animal to get the nutrients they require to lay viable eggs.
Tags: bite victims, carbon dioxide