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They are Out to Suck Your Blood Whenever They Get the Chance
A Helpful Guide to Our Neighbor the Mosquito
Some background information
Then there are the mosquitoes. No one has a good word to say for them. They are out to suck your blood whenever they get the chance, and raise painful bumps on your hands and face. Worse still, in tropical countries they infect their victims with malaria.
It is the female mosquito that does all the harm. Her long sucking tube is armed with a set of sharp, needle-like lancets; with this neat little instrument she punctures the skin of her victims before sucking their blood.
The little male is harmless. He lives on nectar and the sap of plants and never attempts to drink your blood.
The life story of a gnat or mosquito is like a real fairy story. Very early on a bright summer morning, with a shrill "ping! ping!" the little quick-winged gnat comes flying down to a quiet pool. Lightly she rests upon the surface without even wetting her dainty feet, and quickly she lays one tiny egg after another right on top of the water. She works very fast and before the sun is up she holds between her feet a mass of eggs all carefully glued together in the form of a tiny boat-shaped raft.
Her work done, Mother Gnat darts up into the air to spend the rest of the summer day in merry dancing, leaving the cluster of eggs to float on the water.
The tiny raft is waterproof, and so well shaped that it cannot sink or overturn. Each wee egg in the cluster has a pointed top and a little trapdoor which is kept tightly shut to prevent the water from flowing in.
All day long the tiny craft floats lightly on the water. Then, early next morning, the trapdoors open and all the gnat babies come tumbling out of their fairy boat. But what odd little babies they are! They are not in the least like Mother Gnat. They have long bodies, no legs, big heads, and shoulders with stiff bristles sticking out like long whiskers all around, and funny forked tails with one fork much longer than the other.
The queer gnat babies grow very fast. The time is near when the ugly water baby must leave the dark pool where it has passed its infant days and rise, as a winged insect, into the sunlit air.
When the thrilling moment of its escape arrives, the pupa rises for the last time to the top of the pool and pushes its big helmet clear above the surface of the water. Then, taking courage, it darts aloft to join its sisters and brothers in a merry dance.
—Ernest Hunter Wright and Mary Heritage Wright, eds., Richards Topical Encyclopedia (New York: J. A. Richards Publishing Co., Inc., 1946).
Some mosquito larvicides
| Chemical |
Rate Actual per Acre |
Formulation |
Amount to Apply per Acre |
| Abate |
0.05 lb |
|
0.1 gallon |
| DDT |
0.2 lb |
1 part 25% emulsifiable conc. to 24 parts water |
2 ½ gallons |
| 0.1 pounds technical DDT in 1 gallon fuel oil |
2 gallons |
| 5% DDT dust or pellets |
4 pounds |
| Benzene Hexachloride |
0.2 lb |
1 part emulsifiable conc. to 19 parts water or fuel oil |
2 ½ gallons |
| 3% agricultural dust |
7 pounds |
| Chlordane |
0.1 lb |
1 part 46% emulsifiable conc. to 45 parts water |
1 ¼ gallons |
| Heptachlor and Dieldrin |
0.1 lb |
1 part 20% emulsifiable conc. to 39 parts water or fuel oil |
2 ½ gallons |
| 5% granular |
2 pounds |
| Malathion |
0.25 lb to 0.5 lb |
1 part 20 emulsifiable conc. to 19 parts water |
3 to 6 gallons |
| 1 part 25% emulsifiable conc. to 34 parts water |
3 to 6 gallons |
—Lee C. Truman, Ph.D. and William L. Butts, M.Sc. Scientific Guide to Pest Control Operations (Cleveland: Pest Control Magazine, 1967).
An interpretation of your dreams about mosquitoes
Designing friends will attack you. If they are numerous: it is because your friends are jealous of you. If large: because they are envious of your success. (Fortunate numbers: 3-78-54)
—Rex Aquarius, Solid Gold Dream Book (1933).
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