Charateriestics
We have all the types that spread malaria (Anopheles), encephalitis
(Culex), yellow fever, and dengue (Aedes aegypti). The good news
is that there are only occasional cases of these maladies.
For the most part, the worst thing about mosquitoes is that burning,
itchy bump that erupts after the bite and the fact that mosquito
bites transmit heartworm to our dogs. The good news is that
only half of the mosquito population needs our blood. Weighing
only 1/25,000 of an ounce, the female mosquito can land on the
skin without any tactile response from our brains.
Life Cycle
The bad news is that the whole process from egg-larvae-pupae-adult
mosquito can take as little as a week--seven measly days. The
good news is that mosquitoes need water to breed and grow, and
that's where you can drastically reduce the problem in your home.
Cycle Interrupts. After the female finishes pumping
your blood, she will probably go to several more feedings.
The adult mosquito lives an average of 2 to 3 weeks, but during
this time, she is a busy fly, sucking many varieties of blood
and laying hundreds of eggs.
Once her eggs are laid in the water, they can remain unhatched
for several months or hatch in one or two days. When the eggs
hatch, they are bambino larva feeding and growing in the water.
And it doesn't take much water. A pint of water in a Coke can
left on the porch can hatch as many as five hundred larva.
When the children reach adolescence, they transcend
into a pupa state in which they do not feed but just wait for
adulthood. Reaching adulthood, the adult mosquito lifts off the
water's surface, checks to make sure her blanket is pink, and
then, comes buzzing in your direction.
Behavior
That is, until the sucking begins. Like many insects, including
ticks and fleas, mosquitoes hunt for hosts by sensing carbon dioxide
emissions from our bodies. They are also particularly fond of
moist heat around the victim. Unlike ticks and fleas, mosquitoes
do seem to differentiate between victims' blood chemistry, preferring
one person's blood to another. Not all mosquito species prefer
humans at all. Some only attack birds, frogs, deer, or other mammals.
Habitat
The male mosquito can get along just fine slurping nectar, but
the female has to feed on blood in order to lay eggs. First, she
punctures the skin with her proboscis which has six elongated
probes or rigid tubes. Four of these tubes cut the skin. Then
she inserts the other two like a straw in a milkshake and starts
to slurp. Her saliva acts as an anticoagulant and keeps the blood
from clotting. It is her saliva that begins the body's allergic
reaction and you know the rest. Itch and claw. Claw and itch.
After satisfying her brood's desires, the female mosquito flies
off to lay her eggs in water. She won't go very far to do
this either. The hunting grounds of many species is probably only
a hundred or two hundred feet from where the mosquito begins its
life cycle. So one of the best first lines of defense is to interrupt
the mosquito's life cycle by vigilantly searching out and removing
all sources of sitting water around the home.
Alternative Ways to Protect Your Home
The most important step in protecting your home is fixing or replacing
broken window screens. If they can't get in, they can't buzz and
bite.
Protecting Your Body
Your body is your temple. One of the best ways to protect the
temple is to cover it. Wear long sleeve shirts, pants, and a hat
to cover exposed skin. Tuck in your shirt. Mosquitoes are good,
but they're not good enough to bite through cotton. Another
way to protect the temple is to--pardon me--make it stink. Stink
to high heaven. Make the body emit odors that repel mosquitoes.
Entomologist , recommends saturating your body
with B-1 vitamins.
Eat plenty of garlic in foods or take garlic
pills. Not only good for your health, but noxious to insects.
Rub some apple cider vinegar on exposed skin to keep away pests.
