Mosquito Facts

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      Information taken from "The Mosquito Book" by Scott Anderson and Tony Dierckins



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  • Mosquitoes don't need your blood for food, their nutritional needs are met by eating flower nectar.  Only the females use blood to provide proteins that aid in the production of their eggs.  So only female mosquitoes bite!
  • The average mosquito consumes one millionth of a gallon of blood per bite.  It would take about 1,120,000 bites to drain the blood from an average human. 
  • Mosquitoes attract a mate by the pitch given off by their beating wings.  The average wing speed of a mosquito varies between 250-500 beats per second. 
  • A female mosquito can lay up to several hundred eggs per batch. 
  • Female mosquitoes lay their eggs in standing water, or on the mud just above the water line.  The eggs can not hatch without water for the survival of the larval and pupa stages, since at these stages the mosquito lives in the water. 
  • Even though they are aquatic, mosquito larvae still breath air, so they remain close to the top of the water.   
  • The United States hosts about 170 different mosquito species.  In total there are about 3,450 mosquito species total found everywhere except Iceland and Antarctica. 
  • Mosquitoes can fly up and down, sideways, and backwards. 
  • The average mosquito species weighs 2.5 milligrams. 
  • Mosquitoes find us by detecting the Carbon Dioxide that we breathe, the lactic acid we produce, natural skin oils, heat, and even possibly blood type.  
  • Although mosquitoes carry and spread many viral diseases, they are not able to transmit HIV or Ebola.   The viruses die too quick inside of the mosquito to be spread.  
  • Many events in history were influenced by mosquito spread diseases.  Just eight years before the fall of Rome 330,000 acres of farmland was abandoned due to a malaria epidemic.  
  • There are many animals that help with the removal of mosquitoes; dragonflies, damselflies, mosquito fish, purple martins and bats are the most effective. 
  • Most mosquitoes only travel 1-2 miles from their breeding habitat.  But some only an eighth of a mile, and others can travel over 100 miles.  
  • More people have died from mosquito-borne diseases than from all wars put together.