Chapter 2

Know Your Enemy

by Surac


Yes, it's true—only the females bite. They do it for what they think is a very good reason—making little mosquitoes. Although a female mosquito probably can produce eggs without a blood meal, a female mosquito that has successfully punctured your arm and stolen away with a hefty swig of your blood has enough extra protein to produce hundreds of eggs, making her feel like super-mom. Mosquitoes do not bite you to eat. Male mosquitoes do not bite. You probably have seen male mosquitoes, but did not recognize them as mosquitoes. They are a bit smaller than the females, and spend most of their time hanging around on the underside of plants. Both males and females eat plant parts and nectar, just like many other insects. If the human race becomes extinct, mosquitoes will continue on, quite nicely. The females don't need us at all—we are just a handy extra protein source. And don't forget that mosquitoes can get that protein from any animal, or not at all.


Pretend that your next door neighbor finally went on that big vacation to the exotic location that was on his bucket list. Just before he got on the plane to fly home, he was bitten by a mosquito with malaria, yellow fever, or Zika in its system. When he gets home, he starts to not feel well, but thinks it may be something he ate. Meanwhile, inside his body, a pathogen is growing, feeding, and reproducing. Think of John Hurt in “Alien”! Your neighbor goes out on his deck, thinking that some sun will make him feel better, when along comes... a mosquito. The mosquito bites him, and when she does so, she sucks up not only some of his blood, but some of the parasite he carries. Now, she is headed over into your yard, to find a place to lay eggs, when you come out to water the grass....


This is how mosquito pathogens are spread. Right now, the mosquito that bites you while you are watering the lawn probably will only irritate you and not kill you. But with the prevalence of international travel and trade, Zika and West Nile are already here, with more diseases coming.


Think about how tiny a mosquito is. Now think about how tiny a mosquito egg must be. A female mosquito, with a juicy slug of your blood, can lay a “raft” of 400 mosquito eggs. It's called a “raft” because that is what it looks like, although very tiny. Actually, there are species that do other things—for the purposes of this article, we will stay with the behavior of the type of mosquito you are likely to encounter in your backyard or neighborhood. There is a type of mosquito that is found only in New York subways, and has adapted itself to that environment.


Anyway, Mrs. Mosquito has her eggs, and her protein boosting blood meal, thanks to your generous donation of blood. Now she needs a nice quiet nursery for the babies. For a successful hatching of larvae, a mosquito only needs about an inch of standing, quiet, stagnant water, with some organic debris on the bottom. The larvae need about two weeks to go from egg to flying mosquito. In that two week period that they need, they can be frozen in ice, and then pick up where they left off, when the ice thaws. This is where the mosquitoes you see first thing in the spring come from. They have overwintered, either as eggs or developing larvae, probably frozen in ice, waiting for warm flying weather to continue their development. Mother mosquito generally will not lay eggs in or on moving water of any kind.


Mosquitoes can lay their eggs in a pond, a marshy area, or the bird bath or water feature in your backyard. That beer can lying by the side of the road?--all it needs is a little organic debris (leaves, dirt) and about an inch of water to start breeding mosquitoes. And it will. Mosquitoes are very, very good at finding and exploiting even the smallest containers of dirty water.

If you wanted to create the ideal mosquito nursery, it would be the automobile tire (without rim). A tire left outside, say at the back of your property or thrown in the weeds, quickly accumulates dirt and water. It is warm, secure, protected, and has everything a larva could wish for—food, water, no predators—a veritable mosquito paradise! There is no such sanctuary for the mosquito eggs laid in a marsh or pond, and their survival is “iffy”. Fish, dragonfly larvae, and many other insects all prey on mosquito eggs and larvae. But your birdbath, tires, or the sewer in front of your house contain none of those, and the mosquito larvae mature and fly peacefully and without incident. Other places I have found mosquito larvae include unused hoses, lawn furniture legs, compost makers, rain barrels, house drains, flower pot saucers, children's toys, and pipes driven into the ground to mark lot lines. Anything man-made and able to hold water for two weeks can become a mosquito incubator and flying mosquito factory.


A mosquito larva spends most of its time at the bottom of its nursery, but mosquitoes must breathe, so every so often the larva must leave the bottom, travel to the surface, and stick its breathing tube up into the air. If you suspect a pool of water may be infested with mosquito larvae, quietly watch the surface for a few minutes. Mosquito larvae hitting the surface of the water to breathe will look like pin pricks on the water surface.


If you discover larvae in the birdbath that you haven't cleaned for three weeks, or your child's backyard pool, or in collected water on your boat cover, dumping the water will kill the larvae. Water that cannot be dumped, like in a water feature in your backyard, can be treated with “mosquito donuts”, which are nothing more than bt (bacillus thuringiensis), a bacteria deadly to mosquito larvae, but harmless to fish, humans, and other animals.


Mosquitoes are a formidable enemy. They certainly are survivors, have existed on Earth long before we were here, and probably will be here long after we have gone. The problem is, mosquitoes and the diseases they carry, are making us, and the rest of Earth's inhabitants, miserable. And yet, there is probably no need for you to live with the misery mosquitoes cause.


Checking your own yard for prime mosquito breeding habitat is a great start. You may be surprised at what you find.


Next time: The War on Mosquitoes