My Home:
I will usually remain within one mile of
the place where my egg hatched. I am found most
often near a water source; rivers, ponds, lakes,
streams or pools of standing water.
What I eat:
As a larva, I eat the organic material in
the water. As an adult male, I will drink the nectar or juices
from decaying materials. Only the female mosquito will bite.
The female requires a blood meal to develop her eggs.
What I look like:
I am ½ to ¾ of an inch in length, gray in color with a long needle like mouth part that is used to drink my food.
How I am born:
I go through four stages of development:
egg, larva, pupa and adult. A female will lay her eggs in water,
100 to 300 at a time. As a larva in the water, I breathe by
using a tube I stick up above the surface like a snorkel.
My life cycle from egg to adult is about a month. Female
mosquitoes live up to 100 days. The males only live
approximately 20 days.
Fun Facts:
Mosquitoes existed
about 170 million years
ago, during the time of the
dinosaurs. There are about
3,500 species of mosquitoes.
