You dislike them, but they will blow your mind – Issue #77

Hello Explorer,
Many things in nature blow our minds, but more often than not we miss the common and everyday things that will astonish us if we just take a moment to appreciate it. Today I want to discuss one group that we dislike, and some might go as far as to say they despise them. Mosquitoes. Today mosquitoes will blow your mind.
It is not a secret that the scariest sound that will make any grown man scared is the buzz of a mosquito flying around his head as he is lying in bed. The only thing scarier than that is when the distinctive buzz stops as the mosquito sits down, at which point a grown man will hit himself in the face, in a likely futile attempt to kill the mosquito in the dark before it gets a meal. Ever think of the power a simple mosquito can have over you?
The part that tells me that a mosquito can blow your mind is the fact that everyone knows that there are mosquitoes that are terrible at being a mosquito. I’m talking about the mosquito that you feel land on you, the one that you can feel bite you, and the one that drank too much blood and struggles to fly away! The fact that we know that there are mosquitoes that aren’t good at being mosquitoes tells us that there are mosquitoes that are good at being mosquitoes. These are the mosquitoes that will blow your mind.
Before we continue, yes, many mosquitoes are disease vectors, and they are the organisms with the highest mortality rate in the world if we look at the diseases they vector. It is estimated that mosquitoes kill 1 million humans a year, while snakes kill 100 thousand humans a year and domestic dogs are third on the list with 30 thousand human deaths per year (Deadliest animals worldwide by annual number of human deaths as of 2022*). While mosquitoes are very bad in this sense, I want us to take a moment to appreciate the marvel of creation as we look at mosquitoes.
One of the most astonishing things to realize is that the buzz mosquitoes make is from them flapping their wings. They flap their wings up to 1000 times per second. Yes, per second that is not a mistake. This buzzing sound also changes in pitch as they change the frequency of their wing flaps, simply if they flap their wings more or less per second the sound changes. This sound has been shown to change in pitch when they pursue a mate. The buzz of a mosquito species is so distinct that we can now actively identify mosquitoes based on the buzz they make!
Another thing that makes mosquitoes so mind blowing is the fact that they are able to stick a needle into you, drink your blood using the needle like a straw, and you will not even know they were there until after they left. This is thanks to their saliva or spit that contains an anaesthetic or numbing agent that makes that you cannot feel the bite. Since a mosquito has a needle like proboscis that it stabs into you and drinks blood through it would be more accurate to say that a mosquito stabbed you! But each species of mosquito has its own composition of spit, and that is why you most likely noticed that you react differently to mosquito bites. Sometimes you swell up massively, directly after the bite and it itches like mad for an hour or so and then it’s over, while other times you only start feeling the itch a few hours later and it might last up to seven days, but never really swells up. This is likely because of different mosquito species that are enjoying your blood instead of other factors.
Did you know mosquitoes are lazy and sleep between 16 and 19 hours a day, depending on the species and stimulants (or food sources) around them. Mosquitoes are also creatures of habit and do not like too much variety in their diet, meaning if a mosquito bit you once it is very likely to return to you later for another meal, even if there are other people around.
So next time you smack a mosquito that was busy having a blood meal, take a moment and think about the marvel of creation and just how complex and mind blowing the blood spat on your hand was just a few seconds ago!
And remember to use your mosquito repellent and always prevent mosquito bites. That way when you go and visit a malaria area, it will be a habit and not something else you have to remember.
Would you like to learn more about the really bad side of mosquitoes as well in future?

If you would like to send me a message with your answers, feel free to do so on Instagram @abugmanslife or via email to [email protected].