January 2005 Update

The Life of a Mosquito

• Most mosquitoes live on plant nectar or rotting material.
• They are found all over the world, even in the Arctic.
• Mosquitoes stay within about 2 miles of their breeding ground.
• Adult lives from a few hours to a few months.
• They "bite" any creature with blood. But they don't really bite, they sting.
• There are 3,000 species of mosquitoes. About 150 species live in the United States.
• Some mosquitoes cause painful or itchy "bites."
• Some mosquitoes carry germs that cause serious diseases.
• Mosquitoes are attracted to victim's warmth, odor, moisture or carbon dioxide in the breath.

Because of budget problems, many cities have cut back on mosquito fogging and now only fog when absolutely necessary or when there is an immediate health danger.

Health & Disease

Mosquitoes cause more human suffering than any other organism with over one million people dying from mosquito-borne diseases every year. Mosquito vectored diseases include protozoan diseases, i.e. malaria, filarial diseases such as dog heartworm and viruses such as west nile, dengue, encephalitis and yellow fever. In Asia more than 50,000 cases of Japanese encephalitis (JE) are reported annually. Yellow fever, dengue and malaria once were prevalent in the United States, but now they are rare. During 1997 and 1998 CDC reported 143 cases of laboratory diagnosed dengue in the US and less than 1200 malaria cases were reported. More recently, West Nile virus (WNV) was the causative agent in 7 deaths among 62 infections in New York City in 1999. This was the first reported case in North America of predominantly African, Middle East and Southeast Asia flavivirus and has now been reported as far south as Florida and Louisiana.

Diseases
Many kinds of mosquitoes do not spread disease, but they leave behind itchy, puffy "bites." Many mosquitoes that are associated with disease live in hot, moist lands near the equator. But disease-carrying mosquitoes can be anywhere in the world.

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