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Mosquitos, our summer plague

© Wayne Dawe

What with the weather getting really nice where I live I thought that I'd write about something that comes with the good weather - mosquitos. If mosquitoes aren't your bag then scoot down to the bottom of the page where I have some a few other non-mosquito related links.

Mosquitoes are everywhere and can be responsible for you catching some very unpleasant diseases depending on where in the world you live. Luckily for me where I live the mosquitoes generally don't leave anything dangerous behind when they take your blood but I do remember one night in India waiting at a internal customs point hoping that the insect repellent I had used and the malaria pills I had taken would keep me safe.

A good description of the mosquito can be found at Culex Pipien Pallens. Culex is the scientific name for the mosquito family, Pipien is the species that lives in Northern North America. Can anyone tell me what the Pallens stands for? A link on this page leads to Biting Flies - Life Cycle of the Mosquito. This has some nice pictures of the different phases of the life of the mosquito. Discovery.com has a neat picture of a highly magnified mosquito wing. Species- Mosquitos has some more pictures of mosquitos taken with an electron microscope which magnifies up to 35,000 times. This site also has some more pictures of mosquitos along with a page of fascinating mosquito facts.

So now that you know all about mosquitos, how do you avoid them? One of the major constituents of most insect repellents is DEET. Believe it or not, DEET has its own web site. Like any chemicals DEET must be used with care especially with kids. Everyone should read the DEET and children page and follow the recommendations carefully and completely. DEET can be very dangerous if eaten or drank so take special care around the eyes and on the hands of small kids. The Off! web page has two amusing mosquito cartoons to help scare you into buying some insect repellent. Off! is one of the many insect repellents containing DEET.

Now the bad news. Research has shown that bug zappers do not work. Researchers at University of Delaware has shown that bug zappers kill more good bugs than bad bugs. For more information click here. A much better way to keep the mosquitos away is to dump out any water collecting in buckets or even small cups outside your home. If you have some bats in your neighborhood than you can build The Perfect Bug Zapper - your own bat house.

One cool thing about mosquitos is that they make their own antifreeze.

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