Mosquitoes
Identification
Mosquitoes are insects in the family Culicidae. They have a pair of scaled wings, a pair of halteres, a slender body, and long legs. Length varies but is rarely greater than 16 mm (0.6 inch), and weight up to 2.5 mg (0.04 grain). A mosquito can fly for 1 to 4 hours continuously at up to 1–2 km/h travelling up to 10 km in a night.
Habitat
Mosquitoes can breed in very small amounts of standing water in as little as five days. After mating, adult female mosquitoes will take a blood meal by biting a human or an animal. She will then lay eggs in or near standing water. Once the eggs hatch, the mosquito larvae will live in the water until they develop into adults.
Damage
Mosquitoes are a vector agent that carries disease-causing viruses and parasites from person to person without catching the disease themselves. Female mosquitoes suck blood from people and other animals as part of their eating and breeding habits. When a mosquito bites, she also injects saliva and anti-coagulants into the blood which may also contain disease-causing viruses or other parasites. This cycle can be interrupted by killing the mosquitoes, isolating infected people from all mosquitoes while they are infectious or vaccinating the exposed population.
The mosquito is dangerous because it likes to feed on our blood, and while it is doing so it may carry to us from another person one of a number of human diseases, the best known of these diseases being malaria and dengue fever. The whole life cycle takes only a few days and can take place in a stream, a puddle, a drain or an abandoned tub of water. It does not take much time and water.