Top 4 facts you should know about mosquitoes

Mosquitoes have a nasty habit of biting us when we are trying to enjoy the great outdoors. But it’s not just annoying, mosquitoes can actually be dangerous.

Here are the Top 5 facts you should know about mosquitoes before you head out for your next hike and plan for a way to keep them at bay.

1. There are more mosquitoes on this planet than humans. It’s probably not surprising that mosquitoes outnumber humans. There are 100 trillion tiny buzzing vampires from 3,450 different species ready to suck your blood. To give you an idea of what exactly that number looks like, if 100 trillion mosquitoes were stacked together on a football field, the pile would reach more than three miles high.

2. Your blood helps create MORE mosquitoes. Only female mosquitoes bite, because blood provides the protein that mosquito eggs need for development. Consider yourself a walking bottle of mosquito baby formula. Yuck.

3. Mosquitoes think you smell nice. It’s true! And it’s not just your fancy perfume. Mosquitoes are attracted to the scents emitted by humans including carbon dioxide, lactic acid and natural skin oils. Mosquitoes even change their flight pattern depending on what they smell, like a heat-seeking missile.

4. Mosquitoes inject you with their saliva. Before sucking your blood, the female mosquito injects you with her saliva, which contains an anticoagulant, allowing your blood to flow freely into her. The little red bump you get from a mosquito bite is actually your body’s reaction to a protein contained in mosquito saliva. (If your mosquito bite won’t stop bugging you, we have a few ways to stop mosquito bites from itching.)

For more on keeping mosquitoes away, visit: mosquitnoband.com