Or is it that the victims pest warning system is currently winning the biological arms race, in which case how are mosquitoes able to successfully reproduce? Or is it that mosquitoes have evolved such that their spawning numbers offset the difficulty they have biting?
Biology is hard.
If I remember correctly, mosquito mouth/tip is so especially made. That it does not cause any pain when it pokes through the skin. Some scientist even manage to use that to create needles that mimic the same behavior.
If you’d ever been really swarmed by mosquitoes or lived in a place where they are ever present you’d not be asking this question.
- When they swarm enough they are nearly impossible to avoid.
- When their presence is constant some people just stop reacting to the bites. I only ever notice mosquito bites on places that get chaffed (like the wrists and hands, around collars and cuffs). If they bite a place you wouldn’t normally scratch and can avoid scratching the area after a bite, for some people a welt is much less likely to form.
- They don’t go after only people. Your irritation at a few bites is nothing compared to the diversity in the evolutionary arms race between mosquitoes and their prey.
- Only the mothers feed on blood. Other mosquito eat mostly plant nectar.
They have! For the most part you don’t even notice mosquitoes biting you until after they’re long gone, the part that itches is from the mosquitoes saliva that is left behind! They have evolved to the point that you should never even feel them sticking their proboscis into you so if you actually catch one biting you it’s probably because something went wrong or you just happened to see it land
If you’re aware enough, you can feel one landing on you. Easier to do if you’re aware there’s one in the room and you try to focus. No real way for them to evolve around that.
You only feel the ones that you can feel. The goddamn ninja mosquitoes permeate the air we breathe. They’re constantly feeding on us — sapping our life force — and we never even notice.
Does vary by mosquito species but yeah for the most part.
Alpine mosquitoes with shorter seasons tend to have swarming strategy, they’re loud and you notice when they land on you. It’s just that there’s about 1-200 of them flying about you so lots will still be successful. These ones mostly don’t spread disease but they ruin a hike.
The sneakiest ones are in the tropics and are the species that spread malaria and other disease.
If only they evolved to not emit high pitch irritating noise.
I am sure I read somewhere that they defecate in the hole after they have drawn blood and that is what causes the irritation. That does not sound as if they are particularly worried about being regarded as annoying, in fact it feels like they see it as a bonus.
That sounds completely made up. Why would they do that?
I definitely had that as vaguely factual, I thought heavy from blood they lightened the load before flying off and the hole was a too tempting target plus they enjoyed the symbolism. I asked ChatGPT and it said it was made up and was quite sneering about it so I suppose that is that.
My understanding is that when they bite you, they also inject a bit of anticoagulant to prevent clotting as they suck blood out. The foreign material creates an allergic reaction that itches.
I don’t think there would be much of an evolutionary advantage to irritating your victim until they start a pesticidal war against you and your kind.
They just seemed to have the correct attitude to do it anyway.
I hate mosquitoes. I’m one of the people that feel them bite nearly every time, it is painful and the bite they leave behind swells and itches. I’ve clawed skin off because of how irritating it feels. I’ll go outside and they naturally gravitate towards me versus others. Existence is pain.
