Mosquitoes belong to a Culicidae family of flies . Not all species of mosquitoes suck blood, but many of those that do can transmit diseases. Even disease-free mosquitoes are irritating because of their saliva, which causes an allergic reaction causing an itchy red bump.
Mosquito bites are more dangerous to humans than any other animal bite. Only female mosquitoes can bite us and drinking our blood to grow their eggs, they can leave behind viruses and parasites that cause diseases like West Nile, Zika, malaria and dengue.
They actually sucks your blood. Female bloodsuckers pierce the skin with their mouth called a proboscis , which is a straw-like tube that covers six thin needles called stylets and they cut the skin, find a blood vessel and suck out the blood. Females have to drink blood to produce their eggs. Males, on the other hand, don’t produce young ones so they stick to slurping up nectar and plant juices instead.
When a female mosquito pierces our skin, she releases saliva (the watery liquid in her mouth)into the wound. This helps to keep our blood flowing, so it doesn’t clog up the mosquito’s proboscis as she drinks away. The chemicals in the mosquito’s saliva irritate your skin and this causes you to develop an itchy red bump.
It hunts for a meal by sensing the heat that surrounds our bodies. It is also attracted to carbon dioxide which we breathe out. Mosquitoes can detect the carbon dioxide we exhale from 30 metres away. And once they sense it, they follow that scent right to their target. Antarctica and Iceland are the only two spots in the world where there are no mosquitoes!
The buzzing sound that you hear when a mosquito gets close to your ear is made by the beating of its wings up to 800 times per second. While its wings beat very quickly, a mosquito isn’t a fast flyer. In fact, it’s one of the slowest flying bugs around.
Komarno, Manitoba is a Canadian town calls itself the mosquito capital of Canada because it’s home to the world’s largest statue of a mosquito.
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