Mozzies. Skeeters. Stingers. Whatever you call them, mosquitoes don't get much love from our species. And why should they? The buzzing bloodsuckers make us miserable and sick, and would appear to be devoid of any redeeming qualities.
Mosquitoes were annoying velociraptors and stegosauruses long before a giant meteor wiped out the dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous period. The oldest confirmed mozzie fossil is nearly 100 million years old.
Our nagging nemesis is also the most lethal creature in the world, responsible for more than a million human deaths every year, mostly children. The Anopheles genus carries malaria, which killed some 600,000 people in 2015, according to the World Health Organization. It also causes painful and sometimes deadly ringworm in dogs, and gathers in swarms thick enough to choke a caribou.
Members of the Aedes genus, meanwhile, spread yellow fever, West Nile virus, dengue, chikungunya, and the Zika virus, which scientists recently confirmed causes severe malformations of foetus brains. Others provoke various strains of encephalitis. There are some 3,500 species in all. They are everywhere except Antarctica. One species, Aedes albopictus, has colonised 20 countries in Europe in just the last 25 years, an expansion said to have been helped by global warming.
Only the female -- in search of protein for her eggs -- consumes blood. Her sometimes virus-infected saliva contains an anti-coagulant to keep things flowing in both directions through her needle-like proboscis. Males, meanwhile, are vegans, and only sip flower nectar. Male mosquitos are important plant pollinators.
As waterbound larvae, mosquitos are filter feeders that consume single-cell algae, and are in turn a favoured food for fish. As adults, they are tasty snacks for birds, bats and spiders. Weighing in at two to 10 milligrammes it takes a lot to make a meal. But then again, there are a lot of mosquitoes in the world.
Since the invention of the insecticide DDT in 1939, humans have been trying to wipe mozzies off the face of the Earth. But the insects get used to every new generation of poison, rebounding stronger than ever. But that doesn't mean we won't keep trying. AFP
