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Mosquito's
Life Cycle
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-All mosquitoes have one common requirement -
they need stagnant/standing
water to complete their life cycle.
-There are four stages to the life
cycle of a mosquito: egg, larva, pupa and adult.
-The female mosquito needs the blood
meal to develop her eggs. Male mosquitoes do not bite - they feed solely
on plant nectar.
-Female mosquitoes can develop
several hundred eggs at each blood meal and lay them in or around water. The
eggs are attached to one another to form a raft or the individual eggs float on
the water.
-These eggs hatch within 24-48 hours
releasing larvae that are commonly called "wrigglers" because you can
usually see them wriggling up and down from the surface of the water.
Wrigglers occur in all kinds of standing water, such as; ditches, woodland pools
and unkept bird baths - anything that holds water for more than a week.
-In about 7-10 days after the eggs
hatch, larvae change to pupa before becoming adult mosquitoes. The newly
emerging mosquito has to stand on still water for a few minutes to dry its wings
before it can fly away. That is one reason that mosquitoes don't breed in
rapidly moving water such as running brooks and streams or even a pond that has
a fountain.
-The female mosquito begins to seek
out an animal to feed on several days after emerging from the water. Adult
mosquitoes can live for a period of four to eight weeks. |
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Mosquitoes
Life Cycle
Mosquitoes
life Cycle courtesy of Virginia Tech Entomology |
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