Mosquitoes By Dorothy Dobbie
The silhouette of summer’s most dreaded predator.
H
ave you ever been in a fog of mosquitoes, where the air is so thick with them you can barely see? At certain times of the year around wet areas of Canada, this is a not unheard-of event. However, it is likely that the biggest annoyance will be having them fly up your nose rather than biting you because chances are they are engaged in a mating swarm. When the editor of this magazine, Shauna, was a baby, we happened to be camping at a place called Beaver Creek halfway up Lake Winnipeg. It was the night Neil Armstrong first walked on the moon. At the campsite, there was an old caretaker who came and asked us if we would like to watch the moon walk with him on the television that he had hooked up using a generator from an old washing machine. We declined as Shauna was fussy. Instead, as dusk descended, we climbed into our station wagon with Shauna and her three-year older sister, Lori, and listened to the moon walk on the car radio. As we sat there, hearing those famous words, “One small step for man, one giant step for mankind”, a cloud of mosquitoes descended from the lake—we could barely see the moon rising over the water. Then, just as suddenly, from behind us in the forest, an air force of dragonflies came swooping in. For a magical half hour, we listened to history being made in space while we watched a very real-life aerial battle waged on earth. Male mosquitoes, which do not bite, hatch first in spring, followed by females which do bite after mating
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when they need a blood meal of protein to develop their eggs. Males live anywhere from a few days to a couple of weeks, during which time they and the females live on nectar gathered from flowers. Females live up to 10 to 18 days under ideal conditions. You have probably been with people who are seldom bothered by mosquitoes and it is true that these flying pests have preferences. If you are the favoured one, it may have to do with your body chemistry: do you smell good to a mosquito? Do you have a hot body? The lactic acid in your sweat is nectar to a hungry female! Heavy breathers are probably putting out a lot of carbon dioxide which mosquitoes use to pinpoint the blood donors. They also have darned good eyesight. They can spot you from 150 feet away. It has long been said that a full moon brings out the biting mosquitoes and it is thought that this may be due to the better light for hunting their next meal. That said, they are not hot weather lovers and will retire to a cool and shady spot in the garden when the sun is at its zenith. They hide from wind and do not like the rain, although if a rain drop falls on them, which it does 25 percent of the time, the drop, which is 50 times heavier that the mosquito, absorbs the mosquito and carries it downward. But the intrepid insect manages to pull away just before the drop hits the ground due to the shape of its body, its wings, and its long legs. Still, it would rather not make the effort. But they love the residue of rain which is lots Issue 4
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