the.com/mosquito
the deadliest animal on Earth, and it weighs less than a raindrop
means A small, flying, blood-sucking insect whose bite leaves an itchy welt and can transmit diseases like malaria, dengue, and yellow fever.
from From Spanish and Portuguese 'mosquito,' literally 'little fly' — a diminutive of 'mosca,' meaning 'fly,' which descends from Latin 'musca.' So the name simply shrugs the creature off as a tiny fly, the deadliest understatement in the dictionary.
- body count
- kills around 700,000 people yearly via disease
- only females
- males drink flower nectar, never blood
- heat seekers
- track your CO2 and body warmth from afar
- ancient pest
- biting humans for over 100 million years
- fast wings
- beat up to 800 times per second
for instance
anopheles gambiae — malaria vector responsible for ~627,000 deaths annually in sub-saharan africa
aedes aegypti — dengue, zika, and yellow fever transmitter infecting ~400 million people yearly
culex pipiens — west nile virus vector that caused 2002 outbreak killing 284 in north america