2000 Mosquitos Bites!

Apparently this isn’t one of the things on most people’s bucket list, but it was for me. I’m a science communicator and so many of my colleagues have done it that at some point I felt like I was probably missing something. I had so many questions. How would it feel? Would I be able to handle it? Would I react to them? Could I talk coherently while I did it? All of these questions were answered from my experience in the video above.

Things I learned about Mosquitoes

There are a few things I learned by doing all this. First, I learned that mosquitoes are extremely diverse. There are over 3000 mosquitoes worldwide and most of them don’t feed on human blood. Even with those that feed on humans, it’s still only the females that feed. They need a blood meal to complete their life cycle and lay another round of eggs.

How Mosquitos Pass on Disease

Simply, mosquitos can pass diseases around as they take multiple blood meals. They’re vectors of pathogens – agents that cause disease. To understand the complexities of this, however, I’d suggest watching this short (which contains a few small duplicate scenes from the above video).

Can we Prevent Mosquitos?

YES!

We can absolutely do something about mosquitoes if we’re aware of their biology. Let me start by showing you what mosquito control is doing to help prevent them. Then, we’ll diving into what you can and should do on your own property.

One of the big takeaways for me was that mosquito control isn’t actually just spraying randomly. They’re basing all of their spraying off of actual field assessments. They’re also spraying at times when it’s only really targeting mosquitoes so as to minimize impacts. Plus, spraying happens at such low levels that it’s not affecting us adversely. Clearly, I would be foolish to have already thought this was completely safe. They are after all spraying stuff that kills living organisms. I guess I’m just happy that after diving into the science and seeing who is directing mosquito control programs here in the US, I can say that we’re in good hands. Let’s hope we continue learning new things to make sure we’re both protected from disease.

Of course, we can all play an important role on our own property to make sure mosquitoes are not a problem. It starts with this:

Thanks again for watching these videos. Make sure to check out more of what I’m doing on Youtube by subscribing to our content. If you want to help support it financially, you can contribute through our Patreon account.

Sincerely –  Rob