Here is a photo of one million mosquitoes

boing
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Originally published at: Here is a photo of one million mosquitoes | Boing Boing

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I hate mosquitoes with a white hot passion, next in line is fleas.

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Looks like a pile of dirt, which is just about right for the top garbage animal on the planet.

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I have questions. First question: where can I get a mosquito trap this good?

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Can you feed them to fish or reptiles now? Just see some frogs gorge themselves on it.

My dad would on occasion find mosquito nymphs in standing water and feed them to his gold fish.

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damn thanks for reminding me I gotta swing by the HD and get a bucket full of skeet corpses

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for the mosquito haters, like me, the best yard defense is the In2Care traps. They use the mosquito’s nature against them, using them to transport larvicide to all their breeding puddles that you would never find, and then after they have poisoned their young a fungus kills them.

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Put up a bat house. Fleas are way worse in my list.

  1. Leeches
  2. Ticks
  3. Fleas
  4. Horseflies
  5. Earwigs - Don’t effing tell a 7 year old they crawl into your ears at night!
  6. Scorpions
  7. Centipedes
  8. Mosquitos
  9. Spiders
  10. Snakes
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Anyone remember Yard Guard? Kill everything (DDT probably) within a 50’ radius for your next BBQ.

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How many square meters would those skeeters normally live in, and how much protein in that pile?

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Florida also has fire ants (one of many invasive species), which are pretty off-putting.

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FLORIDA: The Australia of America?

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They’re dead, so this qualifies as a Wonderful Thing. Thanks, bOINGbOING!

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Leeches have actual medical use. Earwigs and centipedes are harmless. Spiders eat mosquitoes, so only the dangerous-to-human ones belong on that list. And snakes? Snakes are lovely creatures who eat mice and rats and other vermin, and almost all types are not dangerous to humans. So, like the spiders, only that small subset should go on the list.

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Mosquito Magnets. I bought one about 15 years ago. They work by emitting a stream of warm carbon dioxide that simulates animal breath. For certain mosquito breeds, you also add a small dose of odorant to the emitter.

To a mosquito, they look and smell like a shaved rabbit the size of a cow.

When the mosquitos follow the delicious smelling trail back to the warm unit, they fly for the nozzle, which is located just below a fan. The nearly silent fan vacuums them up into the body of the unit, where they dry up and die. All you have to do is periodically open the trap, dump out the mesh net bag filled with thousands of tiny dry bodies, rebait the odorant, and it’s back in business.

They work by burning a small amount of propane to emit a flow of CO2. A 20 pound tank of propane will last a couple of weeks. One magnet will attract the mosquitos from about an acre of land.

They were supposedly designed by a researcher who was trying to live trap mosquitos for a study, who then decided to get in the mosquito elimination business. If you’re looking to see piles of dead bugs, you’ll be amazed at the first cleanout, but possibly disappointed after that – because they really are that effective. I bought mine on the recommendation of a friend who had a cabin in northern Minnesota; we could sit outside and talk all evening without getting bitten. And it did work, at least when I remembered to fill the tank. But our city is now doing a good job of mosquito control, and so eventually I neglected it completely. The frame rusted and I tossed it out.

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Aw, I’d hoped they would have some refillable CO2 thing on them and double as guacamole fluffers and chillers, or other cooler services. Hey kids, go check the sweetened chickpea whipped cream out of the mosquito farm and tip the dead mosquitoes into the Lion’s Mane fermenter, okay?

It’s neat how this is -almost- one of those DEA stylee interdiction photos, with all the contraband lined up; meniscus-scale brutalism. Caught that mosquito gang. [Wheels in tiny whiteboard full of red threads and low-light photos of reddened lumps.]

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I don’t love the mosquito on my arm, but historically, mosquitoes have helped slow down human development of rainforests and marshes. Also spiders are our chums.

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Obligatory:

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Squish 'em anyway. It’s the only way to be sure.

Its the only way to be sure

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There’s nothing more dangerous than a wounded mosquito.

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