The Secret Lives of Mosquitoes | The Eliminator Pest Control and Property Services

A mosquito that dwarfs nearly all of its 3,570 relatives dwells in the Eastern United States' woodlands. Her long legs trail behind her as she flits among the trees during the day in search of her next meal. The enormous mosquito stretches her long, curved proboscis and enters it into the soft center of a flower to slurp up the sweet nectar when her antennae sense and lock onto her target.

That's correct, neither does this mosquito nor many of the other species that we are so quick to swat.

This large bug, appropriately called the elephant mosquito, has largely escaped our notice due to its plant-based diet. Instead, the three percent of mosquito species that transmit zoonotic diseases like malaria, dengue fever, and the Zika virus to humans have long been of worry to humankind. Do not misunderstand: We have every right to be annoyed by these insects. The deadliest creatures on Earth for humans are mosquitoes. But among many species, the long-legged, sugar-consuming elephant mosquito is one that might benefit people more than harm them.

We continue advocate for the indiscriminate destruction of thousands of other species despite the fact that we hardly understand their interesting behaviors and stunning bodies, in addition to the roughly 100 species that frequently transmit disease to humans. Must we also drive out the stunningly iridescent mosquitoes, the nocturnal pollinators of flowers, and the one species known to put its life in jeopardy to shield its eggs from predators?

According to Yvonne-Marie Linton, research director at the Walter Reed Biosystematics Unit of the Department of Defense and curator of the Smithsonian's National Mosquito Collection, "We have been drastically underestimating the diversity of mosquitoes" (WBRU). "Everywhere we go, we discover a fantastic amount of new species."

Linton and her co-authors Richard Wilkerson and the late Daniel Strickman recently published "Mosquitoes of the World," which was made possible by the world's largest collection of mosquitoes. The 1,300-page book emphasizes the variety and significance of all mosquitoes, not just those that people dread. Linton's team has discovered the unexpected beauty, advantages, and diversity of the most despised insect in the world through this extensive effort to increase our understanding of mosquitoes.

The sapphire-blue and silver-striped body of the elephant mosquito gleams in the sunlight as it buzzes from bloom to flower. The colorful spectrum of hues that mosquitoes have evolved to wear is reflected in the brilliant scales along its back and legs. While some species stand out in glittering fashion, others match hues to blend in with their surroundings. Their colors range from dazzling matte orange and iridescent matte violet to black and white polka dots and golden greens. Many other species, such tiger mosquitoes, have prison stripes, which are considered to confound hosts and predators by making it more difficult to visually identify them.

Linton refers to the majority of the harmful species as "brown blobs," with the exception of the Asian tiger mosquito, which is well-known for carrying at least 25 viruses. She said, "The mosquitoes that bother humans the most are usually the dull-colored ones. Linton has spent years contributing to the WRBU's online mosquito database by entering descriptions, disease associations, and genetic identifiers for every known mosquito species. Linton is the curator of the 1.7 million mosquito specimens housed in the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.

Numerous mosquitoes, which Linton has described in far more vivid detail, are strewn amid the brown blobs. She has labeled, for instance, the Sabethes genus of mosquitoes as the "Hollywood showgirls of the mosquito world." Sabethes cyaneus is a particularly beautiful species that is completely covered in violet and blue. On their second pair of legs, both sexes have extended, feather-like scales that resemble the fringed boots worn by the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders. These ornaments' function baffled scholars when it was first discovered.

Linton stated that there was "simply no immediate explanation" for why they would have leg paddles. "These paddles are not particularly aerodynamic; it didn't seem to be a benefit." "These mosquitoes fly in tropical jungles. However, in 1990, after shaving the legs of these mosquitoes, researchers found that the fringe is crucial for mate recognition. Males' paddles are completely unimportant to females, but when females don't have their fluffy legwarmers, the males won't mate with them. It appeared that mosquito matchmaking was more intricate than previously imagined.

When the weather is favorable, mosquitoes do a pretty good job of multiplying. Anyone who has been to Alaska during the summer can vouch for that. Although most species are quick and unclean about it, you wouldn't anticipate the mosquito mating procedure to be very involved. However, there are some unusual animals that perform dances, exhibit displays, and assume poses that belong in a romantic comedy.

While most people get anxious when they hear the high-pitched hum of a mosquito's wings, elephant mosquitoes just hear love melodies. By matching the frequency of their prospective mate's wing beats, males and females have been shown to completely synchronize the tone of their buzzing in a matter of seconds. Although additional research is required, it is believed that coordinated flight frequencies facilitate mid-air mating.

The ability to dance is more important to S. cyaneus than musical aptitude. These insects engage in courtship as ornate as their feathery bodies when they are ready to get down to business, and they almost always do it hanging upside-down.

A male begins by flapping his feathered legs above a neighboring female while perched on the underside of a twig. He waves a little bit faster, flexes his standing legs, and flicks his proboscis a few times if she doesn't fly off or kick him away with her rear legs.

In addition to dangling and dancing, some male mosquitoes have big, fluffy antennae that they use to detect distant females, while others congregate in close swarms and mate as they fall through the air. And males of the New Zealand genus Opifex are known to patrol water pools, guarding and tending to developing pupae in an oddly Lolita-esque manner. As soon as the adult females partially or totally emerge from their casing, they begin to fertilize them. According to Linton, "those ones are like the sexual predators of the mosquito world."

Although mosquitoes will lay their eggs in just about any body of water they can find, holes in tree trunks constitute a consistent water source for maturing mosquito larvae in forests. On the forest floor, you can find their eggs in crab burrows, bamboo nodes, and rainwater welled in the ridges of palm fronds, fruit husks, and curled leaves. Anopheles gambiae, the primary malaria vector in Africa, frequently picks muddy hoof impressions.

Elephant mosquito females look for tree holes to place their egg clutches when they are prepared to lay them. She throws her eggs into the water one by one from her abdomen as she is hovering outside the hole, in a manner that is sure to make human mothers cringe. She may be using this egg-catapulting technique to defend herself against any predators or any catty, dive-bombing mosquito mothers who have already claimed the pool.

After tossing her eggs, our mother mosquito takes off without giving her offspring a second thought. Given that mosquitoes rarely provide for their mothers, this behavior is hardly unusual. However, at least one mosquito mother deviates from the norm: Trichoprosopon digitatum, a mosquito with hairy lips.

Hairy-lipped mosquito eggs are "susceptible to being splashed onto the ground by a raindrop, or carried away if the husk overflows," according to Lary Reeves, an entomologist at the University of Florida who studies mosquito ecology. Hairy-lipped mosquito eggs float on rainwater cupped by fruit husks left behind by monkeys. The mother mosquito props herself over her brood and guards them fearlessly until they hatch, moving them away from approaching insects, water, and debris, according to Reeves, who has researched T. digitatum in the Brazilian rain forest.

He said, "We traveled to Brazil to gather adults of this species, and this mosquito did not want to leave its eggs." It could have simply attempted to save itself by taking flight, but instead it remained there and made every effort to hold on.

Reeves claimed that it is difficult to describe this behavior without anthropomorphizing — or giving the mosquitoes characteristics resembling those of humans — them. The egg-guarding behavior, he concedes, "does give the idea that this mosquito is conscious of the potential risk that's there for its offspring."

While maternal care is a rare behavior among mosquitoes and other flies, T. digitatum is likely acting out of pure instinct to multiply rather than gentle motherly love. Reeves remarked, "I'm no longer surprised by the complexity of mosquito behavior. They "do a lot of strange and crazy things."

Elephant mosquito eggs can develop into larvae that are nearly the thickness of a pencil, much larger than other mosquito larvae. The majority of larvae feed on bacteria, algae, and debris in the water. However, the larvae of elephant mosquitoes are spiky, voracious hunters. They happily eat the writhing young of other mosquitoes, which is fortunate for us. Elephant mosquitoes have been used as a bio-control strategy for disease-carrying mosquitoes in locations like Texas, Vietnam, Uganda, and Samoa, indicating that their predatory tendency has not gone overlooked.

To get rid of mosquitoes that bite people, they have placed the most vicious larval feeders in rice fields, according to Linton. They simply destroy everything because they are so large. Every day, one elephant mosquito larvae can consume 30 to 40 of the cute little creatures. They consume a lot of protein as children, enough to sustain them until adulthood, so they don't require a blood meal to produce good eggs.

Numerous species don't consume blood as adults, including the elephant mosquito and its relatives. But in all honesty, the most of them do. However, humans aren't always on the menu. Frogs, crocodiles, earthworms, armadillos, manatees, and even mudskipper fish are among the other animals that hematophagus, or blood-sucking, mosquitoes prey on.

According to recent studies on fossilized mosquitoes, these insects were formerly dinosaur bloodsuckers that fed on reptiles, according to Linton. "In many instances, we are not at all their ideal host. We are merely by chance present. By nature, we also outcompete, overharvest, and drive out many of the creatures that mosquitoes depend on, forcing them to feed on our blood in their place.

Mosquitoes derive their energy from nectar, sap, and fruit juice when they are not sucking blood for protein. However, mosquitoes in the genus Malaya steal carbohydrates from other insects. They will massage the faces of ants and aphids with their antennae and short proboscis, prompting them to spit forth honeydew from their mouths.

Reeves stated, "We don't know if these mosquitoes are accosting the ant and the ant's defense is just giving it up, or if they are mimicking hungry ants and 'asking' them for honeydew. We do know that most of a mosquito's diet consists of sugary plant juices, and this close interaction with plants may be much more significant than we understand.

The role of mosquitoes in pollination is very poorly understood because of their vampire inclinations. Because fewer individuals are looking at flowers after dark, there is a significant bias, according to Reeves. "I don't think I've ever seen a mosquito at a flower in the daytime, but I've seen thousands on flowers at night,"

Although mosquitoes are well-known pollinators, little is known about the plants they visit and how well they spread pollen when compared to bees, butterflies, and beetles. Through flower-blocking trials, studies have demonstrated that some flowers are less successful when nighttime pollinators are absent; in other words, they tend to generate less viable seeds in comparison to blooms whose daytime pollinators are blocked out.

This shows that nocturnal organisms like mosquitoes may be just as vital for ecosystem functioning as the familiar pollinators we see during the day, along with the sheer number of mosquitoes observed on flowers at night. However, there is still a long way to go before people recognize mosquitoes. They are frequently left out of pollinator studies, even among scientists. Even among entomologists, Reeves noted, "few people anticipate to find mosquitoes on flowers."

Mosquitoes are tightly entwined with innumerable plants, animals, microbes, and pathogens, yet our awareness of them is narrowly centered on the painful welts they leave behind and the diseases they bring. Mosquitoes have their proboscises in every ecological pie. We should put more effort into comprehending them in the context of their settings if their immense impact on humans alone is any indicator of their interactions with other species.

We still have a lot to learn, Linton added. "People frequently assume we have mosquitoes under control by this point, but we are far from finished." The lesser-known mosquito species out there do, in fact, exhibit a rich diversity that's difficult to ignore once you take a closer look, with their flashy colors, peculiar sex lives, and variety of hosts. There are probably many people out there who could save lives, if only we could recognize them.