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Speaker 2: Oh hey, it's the day drunk lady who loves your perfume.
Speaker 2: Ali word back with the episode. You don't want to want,
Speaker 2: but you know that you need it. You're just itching
Speaker 2: for it. Listen a few things I know about you,
Speaker 2: all right? You hate mosquitoes. You want to try to
Speaker 2: appreciate literally one thing about them if you can. Also,
Speaker 2: you want to kill them. We got you, so I
Speaker 2: have waited four years to have this very specific guest
Speaker 2: on ever since we had her on the Black af
Speaker 2: and Stem episode in the year of our Lockdown twenty twenty,
Speaker 2: let's reave it in.
Speaker 3: Did you know that mosquito is Spanish for little fly?
Speaker 2: So despite my nudging and begging her every spring to
Speaker 2: talk mosquitoes, she has been a bit tied up becoming
Speaker 2: doctor Masse and is now working in a postdoc for
Speaker 2: the US Centers for Disease Control. For years, I've been like,
Speaker 2: whenever you're ready, I have two mics. I got a
Speaker 2: million questions. That time is now, which we will get to.
Speaker 2: But first, just quick thanks to everyone who sends those
Speaker 2: questions in Via patreon dot com slash ologies, you can
Speaker 2: become a patron for as Lola as about a month.
Speaker 2: Thank you to everyone out there getting bitten in our
Speaker 2: ologies merch from ologiesmerch dot com, where we have also
Speaker 2: a tick shirt that boldly reads check your crevices. We
Speaker 2: also have some suits you can put on your body.
Speaker 2: Thank you to everyone who is listening to our spin
Speaker 2: off show, Asmologies, which just a few weeks ago launched
Speaker 2: as its own show in its own feed. Look for
Speaker 2: this colorful new logo with a bird and a frog.
Speaker 2: That show Smologies is in your podcast app or at
Speaker 2: the link in the show notes. They're shorter entirely Kids
Speaker 2: save classroom friendly episodes. Also thanks to everyone who leaves
Speaker 2: reviews for this show, ologies, which I read all of
Speaker 2: just hungrily, including this recent one from Jane and Monica,
Speaker 2: who listened to the secret at the end of a
Speaker 2: recent episode and said that my having at least seven
Speaker 2: friendly spiders in my office has inspired them, has inspired,
Speaker 2: has inspired them to inch toward getting over a fear
Speaker 2: of spiders. And they were able to walk past one.
Speaker 2: And this feat was so giant that it moved them
Speaker 2: to tears. JANEA Monic, I bet that spider is even
Speaker 2: happier than you are, or I am so well done. Okay.
Speaker 2: Calciology it's a real word. It first appeared in the
Speaker 2: book review of a tomb titled Mosquitoes of New York
Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy nine, and the reviewer noted that Mosquitoes
Speaker 2: of New York is a great contribution to Colcidology and
Speaker 2: will stand as a frequently cited reference for years to come.
Speaker 2: Look at that right now, forty four years later, I'm
Speaker 2: citing that citation. So calcidology. It's the study of mosquitoes.
Speaker 2: The word comes from the Latin for midge. Their tiny cousins.
Speaker 2: And because you had so many very valid questions, this
Speaker 2: episode went very long. It turned from an adybitty single
Speaker 2: to a beast. So this first part in it, you'll
Speaker 2: become familiar with your sworn enemy, learning how they work,
Speaker 2: what they eat. You'll appreciate their beauty, trust me, their complexity,
Speaker 2: their cunning, and their strategy and the history. And then
Speaker 2: next week we're going to tell you how to stop
Speaker 2: them from feasting on your exposed parts. So get ready
Speaker 2: right now to learn about them. You're going to fill
Speaker 2: your ears with facts about high pitched sexy buzzing, their
Speaker 2: wings of wonder, what is happening with their hell mounts,
Speaker 2: Why it's vital to study them, why they are scarier
Speaker 2: than shark, where they make their babies in your yard,
Speaker 2: Why this skeeter field needs bug nerds, Why these hungry
Speaker 2: bitches want your blood in the first place, why you
Speaker 2: get bitten more than your friends? And next week what
Speaker 2: to do about all that with medical entomologists Mosquito expert
Speaker 2: and appreciate and colcidologist doctor Fallon wear Gilmore.
Speaker 4: Finally, I love her.
Speaker 3: Him. My name is Valli ur Gilmore, and I used
Speaker 3: to pronounce she her.
Speaker 2: How exciting is this for me? By the way, this
Speaker 2: is very exciting for me.
Speaker 3: I'm excited to finally be on here. I felt like
Speaker 3: we went through like a whole roller coaster of like
Speaker 3: defend my PhD, move to Puerto Rico, and then completely
Speaker 3: forgot about what was going on.
Speaker 2: So you your doctor wear gilmore now, Yeah.
Speaker 3: It's wild. Yeah. I finished up live PhD last year.
Speaker 3: I just I saw a Facebook Memories post and it
Speaker 3: was like me getting I had just picked up my
Speaker 3: cap and gown today, which is truly wild.
Speaker 2: How exciting? I mean, I have been just kind of
Speaker 2: waiting in the mosquito wings for timing to be right
Speaker 2: for you. And now you're working with the CDC. Can
Speaker 2: you tell me a little bit about what the last
Speaker 2: year has been like for you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I defended my PhD in February, and then
Speaker 3: that July I started in a program called the Epidemic
Speaker 3: Intelligence Service And so this is a fellowship program with
Speaker 3: the CDC globally recognized like was my dream position for
Speaker 3: its investigative and emergency response efforts.
Speaker 2: So again, eis is the United States Epidemic Intelligence Service?
Speaker 2: Did you know that existed? Neither did I it's a
Speaker 2: two year post doc after PhD program for people in
Speaker 2: the health industry to do applied epidemiology. And if you're
Speaker 2: accepted into the Epidemic Intelligence Service Program, you're training under
Speaker 2: CDC mentors. You're helping protect people all over the globe
Speaker 2: from some emerging and existing diseases. Also, it may involve
Speaker 2: a one way plane ticket for those who love adventure
Speaker 2: or hate their hometowns.
Speaker 3: We're sent out where we are needed globally for healthcare
Speaker 3: and public health support. So I am assigned to the
Speaker 3: Puerto Rico Department of Health and it's been great. The
Speaker 3: process for getting here was a little bit bumpy, but
Speaker 3: being able to live in Puerto Rico and really immerse
Speaker 3: myself in the culture and interact with the people has
Speaker 3: been very eye opening and just a great experience overall.
Speaker 2: And then do you know where you might go after
Speaker 2: that or is it really kind of outbreak dependent or
Speaker 2: lab dependent.
Speaker 3: It's honestly dependent. You know. Ideally, some officers stay with CDC,
Speaker 3: some officers stay with the Department of Health, but you
Speaker 3: also have officers that go to farm, they go to
Speaker 3: other industries, maybe they go back to clinical work. So
Speaker 3: it really just depends on what is available at the
Speaker 3: time and what might catch my interests.
Speaker 2: And you mentioned something about this being a dream for you.
Speaker 2: How long have you wanted to work in mosquitoes or
Speaker 2: epidemiology or field work, Like, how long has this kind
Speaker 2: of been like on your vision board.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I'm gonna be honest. I started out undergrad
Speaker 3: as a marine biology major and that just wasn't for me.
Speaker 2: Oh, thank you, what about it? Do you get seasick? No?
Speaker 3: So we went. It was an ecology trip and we
Speaker 3: were in like a salt marsh, and I just was like,
Speaker 3: I don't think I can do this long term. I
Speaker 3: was freaking out. I got so stuck in the mud
Speaker 3: that my shoes got lost. So I continued walking on
Speaker 3: the salt marsh without any shoes. And I went to
Speaker 3: my supervisor the next week and I said, I think
Speaker 3: I need to change my major. And so it was
Speaker 3: wild because I feel like I grew up and I
Speaker 3: was like, I want to work with wells and dolphins.
Speaker 3: And then I was like, I think I'll do environmental science.
Speaker 3: And so I took up environmental science and I had
Speaker 3: the opportunity to do some internships that were entomology focused,
Speaker 3: so studying insects, and many of those were agriculture focused,
Speaker 3: so working on honeybees. But then I also did some
Speaker 3: work with wolf spiders. Yeah, that was a fun internship.
Speaker 2: I was awesome.
Speaker 3: I never thought about I never thought I would work
Speaker 3: with spiders or be okay with it. My mom was
Speaker 3: not okay with it.
Speaker 2: But are you pretty okay with spiders? Now?
Speaker 3: I love them. I actually had a pet tarantula. Her
Speaker 3: name was Rosie. She passed away a few years ago,
Speaker 3: but she was the first spider first a racknent that
Speaker 3: I got after my internship. So they're they're cued up close.
Speaker 3: What was.
Speaker 2: What species was she?
Speaker 3: She was a rosehair tarantula.
Speaker 2: That's what I figured. I was like a pink toad
Speaker 2: or a rose hair.
Speaker 3: Yeah, she was so cute.
Speaker 5: Oh she's the cutest thing.
Speaker 2: So you were working in entomology and you're digging spiders,
Speaker 2: and then how did did you get the bug bug?
Speaker 3: I did? I was like at that point, I was
Speaker 3: doing environmental toxicology and science, and for me it was
Speaker 3: like this was a public health service. So I was
Speaker 3: looking working with aquatic microorganisms to see how they could
Speaker 3: be indicators for stream and pond health, and I was like,
Speaker 3: there's got to be a way that I can combine
Speaker 3: my interest of public health but also of entomology. And
Speaker 3: I learned at a conference that I could do that
Speaker 3: through medical entomology. And so my friend Shelley.
Speaker 5: White Kid, thanks again.
Speaker 3: Jerlie was the one who introduced me to medical entomology
Speaker 3: at the Tropical Medicine Conference ASTMH. And when I got
Speaker 3: home for conference, I googled it, I looked it all up.
Speaker 3: I was like, this is what I want to do,
Speaker 3: and I applied for labs that had a medical entomology focus.
Speaker 3: Most of them were focusing on mosquito born diseases and
Speaker 3: that's how I got into it, and I fell in
Speaker 3: love with it from day one. It's truly just they're
Speaker 3: such small little critters, but they're so complicated and I
Speaker 3: think the roles that they have in our ecosystem is
Speaker 3: very interesting. And they're they're beautiful up close, like I know,
Speaker 3: you know, most people would be like mosquitoes are ugly,
Speaker 3: but under a microscope they're shiny, they're sparkly, like they're beautiful,
Speaker 3: The scales are lovely.
Speaker 2: More on mosquito glamour and miniature looks served in a moment.
Speaker 2: I trust you on that. I love that you went
Speaker 2: from literally whales to mosquitoes, like just kept narrowing down
Speaker 2: your field until you got to like a teeny tiny
Speaker 2: but very important insect. I mean, people have said that
Speaker 2: when it comes to teeny tiny mosquitos, and I don't
Speaker 2: know if this is flim flam or not, but that
Speaker 2: they are the most dangerous animal to humans. Is that true?
Speaker 2: Or are hippos? Where are they? How much impact do
Speaker 2: mosquitoes have on us?
Speaker 3: So I think, you know, I've also seen this paper
Speaker 3: that was kind of ranking animals as most deadly, and
Speaker 3: you would think, like off the cusp, that it would
Speaker 3: be lions, or maybe tigers, hippos, frightening or bears, but
Speaker 3: they actually are mosquitoes. And not only are they a nuisance,
Speaker 3: but they've been known to be able to carry a
Speaker 3: lot of these stabilitating diseases such as malaria and dingay
Speaker 3: and less nile, you know, and also at the end
Speaker 3: of the day, mosquitoes have killed more people than any
Speaker 3: other creature in the world. Even today, almost one million
Speaker 3: people die a year from some type of mosquito born disease.
Speaker 3: So it is not the mosquito itself, but it is
Speaker 3: the pathaging or the viruses and the parasites that they
Speaker 3: can transmit that are very deadly, but you kind of
Speaker 3: it's a package deal at the end of the day.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately, a million people a year according to various compiled sources.
Speaker 2: The roundabout figure for human mortalities by mosquitos is roughly
Speaker 2: a million people a year. Now. Also high on the
Speaker 2: list of animals that could kill you, you right for this,
Speaker 2: freshwater snails, also sandflies. They each transmit some parasite friends
Speaker 2: of their own. But yeah, first on the list by
Speaker 2: a lot is mosquitos at a million a year, with
Speaker 2: over two hundred million mosquito spread cases of malaria a year.
Speaker 2: Most of the malaria deaths occur in little kiddos under
Speaker 2: the age of five, and it's on the rise. So yes,
Speaker 2: it is correct that mosquitoes kill more people on Earth
Speaker 2: in one day than sharks have in the last century.
Speaker 2: Sharks are like, get off my jock, leave me alone.
Speaker 2: I like fish. But between the mosquitoes and the snails
Speaker 2: lies the number two animal risk to human beings. What
Speaker 2: animal kills us less than mosquitoes, but more than snails, Lions,
Speaker 2: is it hippos, Is it raccoons with rabies? No, the
Speaker 2: number two animal caused mortality on Earth coming in it
Speaker 2: over half a million deaths per year. It's caused by
Speaker 2: one species. It's a species of ape Homo sapiens. It's you.
Speaker 2: So in terms of what animal can kill you again,
Speaker 2: first mosquito. Secondly a warlord or someone who's striving and texting,
Speaker 2: or maybe a person you work with who has sold
Speaker 2: firearms like it was a cell phone. Well, getting back
Speaker 2: to the mosquitoes themselves, who are apparently just kind of
Speaker 2: wrong place, wrong time. Really, you said they were beautiful
Speaker 2: and shiny and shimmery. Can you explain to me what
Speaker 2: it looks like when you're looking at a mosquito through
Speaker 2: a microscope, and like, what power of microscopes you need
Speaker 2: to appreciate mosquitoes in that way.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I was spoilt during my graduate career because
Speaker 3: our lab had these very nice microscopes, and I think
Speaker 3: the expensive, high quality ones. So imagine we're at a
Speaker 3: microscope and we have this peatrie dish and we have
Speaker 3: these mosquitos that have been dried down or they've been
Speaker 3: knocked down with ice to kind of keep them from moving,
Speaker 3: and so at first glance, they just like look like
Speaker 3: little black flies with long legs. They're kind of like gangly,
Speaker 3: kind of like the jack skeleton of the flies. And
Speaker 3: so when you look at them close, like mosquitos are
Speaker 3: actually distinguished by their long, slender legs in this thin body,
Speaker 3: but they also have these specialized piercing mouth parts that
Speaker 3: allow them to feed off of invertebrates and vertebrates.
Speaker 2: Tall lanky legs for days, and bloodthirsty mouths made of racers.
Speaker 2: Jack Skellington meets anemic nineties supermodel meets Edward scissor Mouth
Speaker 2: meets a horny vampire.
Speaker 3: In addition to that, you'll see these shiny scales, and
Speaker 3: so in my head, I'm thinking about eighties ejip dye
Speaker 3: because that is a vector or a mosquito species eye
Speaker 3: work on and you'll see scales on the wings. You'll
Speaker 3: also see scales along the body in different colors like
Speaker 3: white and silver, and so that banding is what really
Speaker 3: stands out when you first see them under the microscope.
Speaker 2: And are those scales kind of like butterfly scales.
Speaker 3: So they're similar in the sense that it actually they're
Speaker 3: actually very similar depending on the mosquito species, the patterns
Speaker 3: are different and they might not be as shiny as
Speaker 3: they are for safe for like butterflies, But for some
Speaker 3: mosquito species, we do see shinier scales, which I guess
Speaker 3: you could also think of them as fur as an
Speaker 3: easier way to approach it.
Speaker 2: Is that why some look like tiger striped and some
Speaker 2: have like almost bumblebee stripes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the coloration pattern of their scales, And so
Speaker 3: eighties a chift I has like those white scales that
Speaker 3: banding around its body and around its leg.
Speaker 2: Why are they so fancy?
Speaker 3: Yeah, and there's also there are fancier mosquitos like eighties
Speaker 3: Egypti is just one off of the top of my head.
Speaker 3: But there are like mosquito species that have blue like
Speaker 3: sapphire color scales basically and paddles on their leg which
Speaker 3: we think might be used for mating as a mating
Speaker 3: signal to females.
Speaker 2: Hello, ladies, I didn't know that there were sapphire glittery
Speaker 2: ones like that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's called Savethi cyanaces. So it's a mosquito
Speaker 3: we commonly see in Central and South America. But if
Speaker 3: you look it up. I personally wouldn't name it the
Speaker 3: peacock mosquito, but it is a If someone had was like,
Speaker 3: I don't think mosquitoes are beautiful, I think they would
Speaker 3: take one look at that that mosquito and it would
Speaker 3: really change their perspective.
Speaker 2: So, yes, they can be stunning in metallic blues and
Speaker 2: feathery legs and a tenny and these glorious shimmers. And
Speaker 2: why does that even matter? Well, if you are intimately
Speaker 2: bonding over blood with one, it's nice to know its name.
Speaker 2: So while not all mosquitoes are transmitting diseases into your organs,
Speaker 2: a few might be, so it's good to be familiar.
Speaker 2: So eighties is a genus that can carry zega and
Speaker 2: yellow fever, and eighties a jypdi are those beautiful striped
Speaker 2: like Art Deco black and white, sparkly ones. They are
Speaker 2: day snackers on your flesh. Now, the Kalex genus tends
Speaker 2: to be a little bluff like all beige, kind of
Speaker 2: like a hospital waiting room. They're very common. They're called
Speaker 2: a house mosquito, and they prefer to eat at night.
Speaker 2: Side note, they can also carry west now virus, dog heartworm,
Speaker 2: and some other scaries, and if I may, they're the
Speaker 2: least interesting to look at. Now, Anophlies. These buggers carry malaria,
Speaker 2: and you can spot them by their four fashionable brown
Speaker 2: wing spots and the way that they keep their ass
Speaker 2: in the air when they're drinking. You like a mosquito
Speaker 2: doing a keg stand. And just like your junior year
Speaker 2: homecoming date, it might do that keg stand before absolutely
Speaker 2: fucking you and giving you a disease, in this case
Speaker 2: malaria anophales. They bite at night and they kill a
Speaker 2: lot of people. Now, if you wish that there was
Speaker 2: a Facebook for mosquitoes, the closest we might have is
Speaker 2: the twenty twenty two study Participatory Approaches for Raising Awareness
Speaker 2: among Subsistence Farmers in Tanzania about the spread of insecticide
Speaker 2: resistance and malaria vectors and the possible link to improper
Speaker 2: agricultural pesticide use, which notes that local farmers wanted to
Speaker 2: know what these things look like, including learning that the
Speaker 2: malaria vector Anophales floats as a larva parallel to the
Speaker 2: water surface, and according to the study quote, some participants
Speaker 2: referred to eighties as being the most beautiful mosquitoes, given
Speaker 2: its black body and white spots. They also referred to
Speaker 2: male mosquitoes as bearded, providing reference to their feathery antennae,
Speaker 2: just like human males. And the study quotes one thirty
Speaker 2: four year old farmer who exclaimed, oh, now I understand
Speaker 2: that not every mosquito in my house is anophales and
Speaker 2: can transmit malaria. There are other mosquitoes which also dominate
Speaker 2: our village. We love bug appreciation, but why these morphological
Speaker 2: stylistic differences. So, according to the twenty twenty three study
Speaker 2: the origin of black and white coloration of the Asian
Speaker 2: Tiger Mosquito, calcidologists found that it might be to communicate
Speaker 2: within their species for mating and also as a predator deflection.
Speaker 2: And I don't want to brag for eighties, but the
Speaker 2: paper uses the exact phrase motion dazzle camouflage. Clearly, calcidologists
Speaker 2: appreciate their study species. Do you have a soft spot
Speaker 2: in your heart for mosquitoes having studied them?
Speaker 3: I do, Unfortunately, it's very Oh great, that's great, I do.
Speaker 3: And so I think they're really interesting and I think
Speaker 3: it's so wild how they've kind of evolved alongside of us,
Speaker 3: especially these species that are utilizing these urban habitats. But
Speaker 3: anytime I was doing glab work, I slightly felt bad.
Speaker 3: But at the same time I was like, mosquito eggs
Speaker 3: hatch all the time. We have plentiful mosquitoes in the lab,
Speaker 3: but they do have a soft spot for me. So
Speaker 3: I am when people are like, should we eradicate all mosquitoes,
Speaker 3: I'm like, hold on, you know, they're of the three
Speaker 3: seven hundred species. We have only a certain amount of
Speaker 3: them are able to transmit pathogens that are concerning for
Speaker 3: human and animals, and the rest are just They're doing
Speaker 3: what's basic to their biology and for the ecology.
Speaker 2: Okay, So how many mosquitoes are a quiet nemeses that
Speaker 2: we don't understand but we feel obligated to hate. We know,
Speaker 2: maybe it's rash and that is not an itchy pun,
Speaker 2: but we must be a llegiant to our own skin, right,
Speaker 2: So how many are enemies? I checked into the evidence
Speaker 2: and the accusations aka the twenty twenty three study Robust
Speaker 2: Network Stability of Mosquitoes and Human Pathogens of Medical Importance,
Speaker 2: and it turns out that the majority of mosquitoes are
Speaker 2: screaming from their tiny knife mops. Only two point five
Speaker 2: percent of mosquito species are known disease spreaders, and the
Speaker 2: jury is still out on a lot of the other species.
Speaker 2: But at most it would be nine point three percent,
Speaker 2: less than a tenth of mosquitoes given you parasites, So
Speaker 2: that's good, right. Also, it's not their fault that they
Speaker 2: have baggage in the form of pathogens. And if they
Speaker 2: could quit blood and not risk being loathed and swatted
Speaker 2: and flattened by your big hands, I'm sure they would do.
Speaker 2: All of those species use blood as like a meal
Speaker 2: or as I'm not sure why they use blood, and
Speaker 2: we will get to that because it is a huge question.
Speaker 2: But like, what are commonalities with mosquito? Is it just
Speaker 2: a long legs? Is it the blood lust? Is it
Speaker 2: the proboscis? Like what makes a mosquito mosquito?
Speaker 3: So a few things. So, mosquitoes are in the order Diptera,
Speaker 3: which are the order that all of our flies are
Speaker 3: grouped into. So Diptera is Greek for two wings, so
Speaker 3: it refers to the characteristic set of wings that they
Speaker 3: have on their back. That's what gives us flies.
Speaker 2: See our amazing diypterrology episode with doctor Brian Lessard, who
Speaker 2: names flies after drag queens officially happy Pride.
Speaker 3: By the way, now, for mosquitos, we have a few
Speaker 3: distinctive features that make the mosquitoes. One, it's their mouth part.
Speaker 3: So mosquitos have this elongated two like mouthpart called the proboscis,
Speaker 3: which they use to pierce the skin and extract blood.
Speaker 3: And this adaptation is unique to female mosquitos because it's
Speaker 3: essential that they blood feed. That blood is necessary for
Speaker 3: egg development. And contrasts, our common house fly have these
Speaker 3: sponge like mouthparts which they use to sponge up liquids.
Speaker 2: Ah. Yes, that dipterrology episode I mentioned on flies goes
Speaker 2: into greater, darker, disgusting depth of barfing and lapping it
Speaker 2: up after tasting with their feet. Let's take a quick
Speaker 2: trip back to dipterurology with doctor Brye the fly Geye,
Speaker 2: they do deserve some slack, they do. What about their feet?
Speaker 2: Do they taste with their feet? Are they covered in
Speaker 2: shit all the time?
Speaker 5: Well, they have happy feet, because yes, they do taste
Speaker 5: from their feet. They're impatient. Instead of waiting to get
Speaker 5: the food in their mouth and like, you know, taste
Speaker 5: it that way like we would, they like to stand
Speaker 5: in whatever they're eating, and it's yes, no, do I
Speaker 5: eat it? Do I not? And so what they do
Speaker 5: is if it tastes good, that's when they'll drop. Their
Speaker 5: probossis their mouth pot that has a sponge at the
Speaker 5: end that SAPs up all the liquid. And they actually
Speaker 5: do eat shit because shit is high in protein and
Speaker 5: other nutrients and electrolytes as well.
Speaker 2: But that's a dipterrology episode. And while mosquitos are flies,
Speaker 2: we're honing in on colcidology specifically, and according to the
Speaker 2: National Institutes of Health, yes, mosquitoes, like housewives, can taste
Speaker 2: with their mouth but also their feet. They love you
Speaker 2: before they even cut you.
Speaker 3: We also know that female mosquitos, you know, outside of
Speaker 3: requiring blood for egg development, they can utilize a variety
Speaker 3: of different feeding hosts. And so that is a few
Speaker 3: things that make mosquitoes mosquitoes.
Speaker 2: Are some of them solely looking for frog blood and
Speaker 2: some are looking for bird blood, and some are down
Speaker 2: with humans or are they like if I can pierce
Speaker 2: it and suck it, I will.
Speaker 3: So you do have mosquito species that will feed on
Speaker 3: reptiles and amphibians, and you have some that are sylvatic
Speaker 3: and prefer forested habitats where they'll find like these woodland creatures,
Speaker 3: and you have some that primarily prefer to feed off
Speaker 3: of humans, so you do have a there is a
Speaker 3: variety in what they will feed on in their host
Speaker 3: preference at the end of the day.
Speaker 2: So, according to the twenty twenty one study Differential attraction
Speaker 2: in Mosquito Human Interactions and Implications for disease control, some
Speaker 2: mosquitoes prefer non humans like birds and mammals. They're zoophilic,
Speaker 2: and others want most of you and they're androphilic. But
Speaker 2: the study also found that if their preferred meal is
Speaker 2: not available, don't take their second or third option, like
Speaker 2: ordering a patty melt when the diner's eighty six don rubens.
Speaker 2: But sometimes it's not even a goofy bird or a
Speaker 2: squirrel they want. There was this twenty eighteen study identification
Speaker 2: of Uranotinea saparina as a specialist of annelids broadens known
Speaker 2: mosquito host use patterns, and it explains that quote despite
Speaker 2: over a century of intensive study, no mosquito species is
Speaker 2: known to specialize on non vertebrate hosts. However, they continue.
Speaker 2: We provide the first evidence to our knowledge that a mosquito,
Speaker 2: in this case, Euritinea safarina, a gorgeously blue flecked creature
Speaker 2: specializes on earthworms and leeches. I mean, I have friends
Speaker 2: who only drink biodynamic natural wines. I have others who
Speaker 2: would happily enjoy a room temperature gin out of a
Speaker 2: solo cup.
Speaker 3: I'm simply saying that life.
Speaker 2: Finds a way. Wonder how the proboscis must be able
Speaker 2: to pierce reptile skin. Do they go in between the scales?
Speaker 2: Do they just get up in there?
Speaker 3: So the pcus is strong ish, but you know, reptile
Speaker 3: skin is hard. So I've seen videos where they've recorded
Speaker 3: the mosquito host seeking and the mosquito found like a
Speaker 3: little tiny slither of skin where a scale wasn't covering it,
Speaker 3: or the softest part of the body of that animal.
Speaker 3: So sometimes that's the stomach area that's easier for them
Speaker 3: to bite, or maybe that might be near some other orifices.
Speaker 2: You know, I think that happened to my daughter Gmy
Speaker 2: a dog who has a mosquite looks like a mosquito
Speaker 2: bite right on her tummy, but you know where she
Speaker 2: has less fur. Is that what happens to mammals too,
Speaker 2: is it easier to bite you know, under the legs
Speaker 2: or somewhere where it's more vulnerable. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Similarly, when we go outside, typically when we're you know,
Speaker 3: hiking or doing like a lot of outdoor activities. To
Speaker 3: protect ourselves from mosquitoes, we might wear long sleeve clothing
Speaker 3: and socks, but mosquitoes will find those spots that are
Speaker 3: not covered that are most vulnerable. And so with domestic
Speaker 3: animals like cats and dogs, it's easy to go for
Speaker 3: areas where there is and a lot of furs. So
Speaker 3: that's going to be the facial area, maybe around the eyes,
Speaker 3: but also under the tummy. And I've also seen my
Speaker 3: dog used to get a lot of bug bites near
Speaker 3: her ear as well.
Speaker 2: Gotcha. Yeah, I'm from California, and I remember I went
Speaker 2: to like Minnesota for a wedding once in the summer
Speaker 2: and the air was just thick with mosquitoes. I'd never
Speaker 2: seen anything like it because I'm from like more arid climate. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and I had been bending over like doing something, helping
Speaker 2: out or whatever, and I had like a belt of
Speaker 2: mosquito bites from like where my shirt had like come up.
Speaker 3: They don't care, but where.
Speaker 2: Where where on your body is safe? I asked the
Speaker 2: twenty two twenty two study observing the distribution of mosquito
Speaker 2: bites on humans to inform personal protection measures against malaria
Speaker 2: and dengey vectors, which somehow convinced four volunteers to get
Speaker 2: in a room with lab reared and disease free but
Speaker 2: starving mosquitoes from either six am to noon for day
Speaker 2: biting eighties or six pm to midnight for night biting anophalies,
Speaker 2: for twenty days. And from this blood sacrifice, we now
Speaker 2: know that the anophales bites when the volunteer was standing up,
Speaker 2: those were almost all below the knee. Anophalies they liked
Speaker 2: below the knee. But when these generous volunteers were lying
Speaker 2: down sleeping, they got bitten all over their damn body
Speaker 2: by the anophalies which are night biters. Now, the day
Speaker 2: biting eighties bites were only about fifty percent below the knees,
Speaker 2: and then they were all over the place while sleeping.
Speaker 2: So researchers concluded that wearing socks, trousers, and long sleeve
Speaker 2: shirts could theoretically prevent up to eighty three percent of
Speaker 2: bites during sleeping and at least ninety percent of non
Speaker 2: sleeping bites. I also was like, okay, that's good. But
Speaker 2: I scanned the entire paper for some explanation of how
Speaker 2: they convinced people to participate in the study, and I
Speaker 2: came up blank, other than the fact that these folks
Speaker 2: were in Tanzania and they had a vested interests perhaps
Speaker 2: and donating their fragile skin and blood to science for
Speaker 2: malarial prevention. Since they didn't get paid for their service,
Speaker 2: I'm going to read from the study acknowledgments, which include,
Speaker 2: we would like to express our sincere gratitude to our volunteers,
Speaker 2: Moses Lagani, Bonafas mcguilla, Baraka Kidwanga and Ibrahim Mizkaia from me,
Speaker 2: thank you, sirs for withstanding that lion's den of tiny predators.
Speaker 3: Yeah they're ruthless, they're.
Speaker 2: Rutless, but they're smart and maybe I smelled delicious. We'll
Speaker 2: get to that too. But do they live everywhere and
Speaker 2: there's just more of them in more humid climates or
Speaker 2: do we just like straight up not see them in Antarctica.
Speaker 3: So mosquitoes are what makes them really interesting is that
Speaker 3: they can take up a lot of these ecological niches
Speaker 3: so they're ubiquitous in many parts of the world, and
Speaker 3: their distribution at the end of the day is going
Speaker 3: to be influenced by environmental conditions and the availability of
Speaker 3: suitable breeding sites.
Speaker 2: So how good is the vibe? Can you mate? Can
Speaker 2: you lay eggs?
Speaker 4: There?
Speaker 2: For the most part, most places will do doctor where
Speaker 2: Gilmour says.
Speaker 3: So, we've seen mosquitoes thrive and habitats including temperate rainforest,
Speaker 3: tropical rainforest, urban areas. But again, you know, we're not
Speaker 3: seeing mosquitos in Antarctica, but we are seeing them in
Speaker 3: a lot of different places. And when we have changes
Speaker 3: in climate as well, it's creating more suitable habitat for
Speaker 3: these populations to shift.
Speaker 2: Oh right, Like right now, we might not be seeing
Speaker 2: them in the top of a Nordic fuorn, but give
Speaker 2: it a couple decades and who knows, maybe there'll be
Speaker 2: a Sandals resort there.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, and their logo would be like a mosquito.
Speaker 2: Everything's changing. It is what about the temperature? How much
Speaker 2: does the temperature affect that? And do they all just
Speaker 2: die in the winter? What happens to them?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so not all species of mosquito die in the winter.
Speaker 3: You have some species that will overwinter, so they'll overwinter
Speaker 3: as eggs, or they might overwinter as larvae, depending on
Speaker 3: where they are. So if you have a thick level
Speaker 3: of ice or something that might basically be incubating them
Speaker 3: or allowing them to be dormant, that might change. So
Speaker 3: not all mosquito species die during the winter.
Speaker 2: So yes, some of your summer skeeters survived the winter
Speaker 2: without a parka mittens no six dollars latte that got
Speaker 2: cold as soon as you stepped outside. They just honkered
Speaker 2: down under ice, tougher than you, no offence.
Speaker 3: And then as far as temperature plays a huge role
Speaker 3: in mosquito physiology and bio and so temperatures need to
Speaker 3: be not perfect but just right so you see the
Speaker 3: emergence of the larvae into pepe and the pupe into adult.
Speaker 2: I remember when I was a kid, I thought I
Speaker 2: had found a new species of animal because I looked
Speaker 2: into a bucket and saw all these tiny shrimp, and
Speaker 2: then my dad was like, those are just misquit.
Speaker 3: Oh that's okay. Now, they're very funny looking. When they're
Speaker 3: at that stage, they're just like, I don't really know
Speaker 3: what you are. And there are a lot of other
Speaker 3: fly species that will lay their eggs and bodies of
Speaker 3: water and hatch, so it can be confusing on what
Speaker 3: they might actually be.
Speaker 2: Can you tell me a little bit more about that
Speaker 2: life cycle and why a female mosquito needs that blood meal?
Speaker 2: Do they need that right before they lay eggs and
Speaker 2: the rest of the time what do they mention on.
Speaker 3: That's a good question. So do we want a full
Speaker 3: story of the mosquito life cycle?
Speaker 4: Of course?
Speaker 2: Okay, dude, come.
Speaker 3: On, that's fun. I love it. I wish we'd had
Speaker 3: visuals because there's so many there's so many departments of
Speaker 3: health and mosquito abatement groups that have beautiful visuals that
Speaker 3: they use an outreach to describe the life stages of
Speaker 3: the mosquito. But for this, for this, I'll try and
Speaker 3: paint a picture. And so we'll start with eighties a
Speaker 3: jip dye. This is a container breeding mosquito, so it
Speaker 3: prefers to breed in man made containers that are left around.
Speaker 2: So in the twenty fifteen study breeding sites of eighties
Speaker 2: A jip dye potential denge vectors in East Ethiopia, colesidologists
Speaker 2: set out to see which reservoirs of water were the
Speaker 2: most attractive to expectant mosquito moms. And first off, rain
Speaker 2: water only plays. Okay, they did not prefer to lay
Speaker 2: eggs in tapwater. It's got to be fresh, organic from
Speaker 2: the sky. Now. Some attractive places included mud pots, old sinks,
Speaker 2: small puddles, and rumpled up tarps and neglected buckets and such,
Speaker 2: but the top spot for Amazi nursery overwhelmingly old tires.
Speaker 2: Absolutely darling love obsessed.
Speaker 3: And so a female who has blood fed, who has
Speaker 3: made it, will lay these eggs on the edge of
Speaker 3: the water, and those eggs will hatch after a certain
Speaker 3: amount of time. Once they hatch, we call those larvae.
Speaker 3: The species will stay as larvae for around maybe we'll
Speaker 3: say four to six days. And again this is dependent
Speaker 3: on temperature conditions, because if temperature is higher, the pace
Speaker 3: of them hatching and also the pace of them at
Speaker 3: their larval stage might be quicker, or if it's lower,
Speaker 3: you might have a slower developmental cycle.
Speaker 2: Okay, different species have different parroting styles, but a lot
Speaker 2: of common mosquitoes will lay a bunch of eggs like
Speaker 2: in a raft style, kind of in a bundle, and
Speaker 2: then when the larvae are in the water. Some will
Speaker 2: be underwater using little snorkel on their face, while other species,
Speaker 2: like the malaria carrying an Ophiles genus, is floating flat
Speaker 2: right under the water surface. Before they emerge as adults
Speaker 2: rising from the water to conquer the air, they go
Speaker 2: through an awkward pupa stage where they look like shrimps
Speaker 2: with big, weird heads.
Speaker 3: And after larvae we have pupe. The pewpe under the
Speaker 3: microscope look like little Shrek. They're like little commas with
Speaker 3: struck ears. They're funny looking. And then after the pewfae,
Speaker 3: we have adults. So they'll emerge from that aquatic habitat
Speaker 3: into terrestrial adults, and then as adults they'll mate and
Speaker 3: then continue that cycle of laying eggs, turning into larvae,
Speaker 3: turning into pewpe and adults again. But during that the
Speaker 3: female will need to take on a blood meal for
Speaker 3: specific biological and reproductive reasons, so they need a blood
Speaker 3: meal in order to obtain the necessary nutrients for egg development.
Speaker 3: The blood meal provides a lot of things for them.
Speaker 3: It's providing amino acids and other proteins that are essential
Speaker 3: for their yolk and so mosquito eggs have a type
Speaker 3: of yolk protein and additionally the iron obtained from the
Speaker 3: blood aids and physiological processes needed for the overall egg development.
Speaker 2: She's like a hot smoothie chocolate block with fat and
Speaker 2: meat bits and protein and iron. Listen, I've never had
Speaker 2: a baby out of any whole of mine, but I
Speaker 2: have been essential to growing new life on planet Earth
Speaker 2: in garbage tires. And then these babies grow up and
Speaker 2: you hate them. Oh yeah, I mean good for them,
Speaker 2: Good for them. I'm not mad at it.
Speaker 3: So it's just like a tasty treat before you know.
Speaker 3: She has to do the big push if if that
Speaker 3: makes it any better, it.
Speaker 2: Does, It does good good for her? Is she eating
Speaker 2: or he eating anything else? In the interim, If she's like, Okay,
Speaker 2: I'm ready to nest, I'm ready to start a family.
Speaker 2: I need a blood meal. But if she's like, I'm
Speaker 2: not quite ready yet, I'm still exploring the world. Is
Speaker 2: she eating nectar? Is she a waterfast?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Water fast? Yes, so yeah, when she's not taking a
Speaker 3: blood meal. Mosquitos male and female are nectar feeder, So
Speaker 3: they're going to be using these flower resources as a
Speaker 3: sugar resource to get them by. So at the end
Speaker 3: of the day, they're actually pollinators.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, look at that. They're just pollinating, and then
Speaker 2: when it's time to start a family, they just borrow
Speaker 2: a little bit of iron and protein from you. Are
Speaker 2: they looking also for anything hormonal? I feel like that
Speaker 2: is maybe a source of flim flam.
Speaker 3: That has always been a complicated one for me as well.
Speaker 3: I feel like I've done a deep dive on what
Speaker 3: make mosquitoes attract it to you. So we know that
Speaker 3: they're picking up certain olfactory cues and visual cues from us.
Speaker 3: So that's going to be carbon dioxide our CO two,
Speaker 3: but they're also going to be picking up signals from
Speaker 3: our sweat. So there are chemicals and our sweat that
Speaker 3: they can smell that make us very attractive.
Speaker 5: It's amazing.
Speaker 2: Is that worse than if you're like hiking and you're
Speaker 2: breathing out a lot of carbon dioxide and your respiratory
Speaker 2: rates higher and you're sweatier. Is this why if you're
Speaker 2: hiking like the Pacific Crust Trail or something, you're screwed.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, so they're picking up those indicators and
Speaker 3: they're using it when they're trying to basically seek out
Speaker 3: a host to feed from. So if you're breathing more
Speaker 3: because you're hiking and you're letting out more co two,
Speaker 3: that's just giving a better signal to the mosquito to
Speaker 3: be like, oh, that might be something I could blood
Speaker 3: feed from.
Speaker 2: We're going to dive back into what makes you so
Speaker 2: attractive to mosquitoes or potentially less attractive in a minute,
Speaker 2: but first some words from sponsors of the show, who
Speaker 2: make it possible to donate to a related cause each week,
Speaker 2: and this week it'll be going to the Malaria No
Speaker 2: More Foundation, which has worked for nearly two decades campaigning
Speaker 2: to end malaria and make a world where no one
Speaker 2: dies from a mosquito bite. And so far, well over
Speaker 2: two billion mosquito nuts have been distributed in the area's
Speaker 2: hardest hit by malarial traransmission and over seven million lives
Speaker 2: have been saved and you can find out more at
Speaker 2: malariaomore dot org. And thanks to sponsors of the show
Speaker 2: for making that donation possible. Okay, so we were talking
Speaker 2: about who gets bitten the most and if you're wondering
Speaker 2: do people really study that, the answer is are you Okay?
Speaker 2: Of course they do, Yes, Calcidologists are all about this
Speaker 2: question and according to the twenty twenty one meta study
Speaker 2: Variability and Human attractiveness to mosquitoes, mosquitoes are known to
Speaker 2: find and bite humans by being attracted to carbon dioxide,
Speaker 2: lactic acid, keytones, ammonia, and other volatile organic compounds through
Speaker 2: our skin. Also noted in this meta study is that
Speaker 2: it's possible that diet can make you more attractive and
Speaker 2: the two top culprits they found beer and bananas make
Speaker 2: you more delicious to mosquitoes or being pregnant. So according
Speaker 2: to the twenty twenty three paper Prevalence of Malaria parasite
Speaker 2: and its effects on some hematological parameters amongst pregnant women
Speaker 2: in Nigeria, Yeah, pregnant people in the advanced stages of
Speaker 2: pregnancy exhale twenty one percent more carbon dioxide than non
Speaker 2: pregnant people, which makes them much more attractive to mosquitoes.
Speaker 2: And that's obviously a risk for both the baby and
Speaker 2: the parent. You do not want to get a disease
Speaker 2: from hungry mosquitoes. But yeah, while garlic through the skin
Speaker 2: will not repel these little vampires, your sweat, your microbes
Speaker 2: and just simply breathing breathing out carbon dioxide can be
Speaker 2: like a ring and dinner bill, like come and get
Speaker 2: it to swarms of them. I had a boyfriend once
Speaker 2: who was hiking in the Pacific Coast Trail years ago,
Speaker 2: and he said that they turned around and went home
Speaker 2: earlier because there were so many mosquitoes. And I was like, Oh,
Speaker 2: I wonder if they're just breathing a lot, so they're
Speaker 2: looking for carbon dioxide. They're looking for certain things in
Speaker 2: your sweat as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so there's like chemical cues and are sweat that
Speaker 3: they're picking up. And that's why you've probably hurt this
Speaker 3: that certain blood types are more attractive to miss mosquitos.
Speaker 3: And this is because every blood type has a chemical signature,
Speaker 3: and some based off a few papers, might be more
Speaker 3: attractive to mosquitoes than others. But I think at the
Speaker 3: end of the day, it really is the overall person
Speaker 3: and their biology at the time that might change depending
Speaker 3: on the mosquito species and the time and place.
Speaker 2: I love that you have done a deep dive on this.
Speaker 2: Have so many people asked to you that you're what
Speaker 2: caused you to start looking to these papers?
Speaker 3: I so I think early on it was like I
Speaker 3: have type B blood? Does that make me more attractive?
Speaker 3: But at the end of the day, I was just like,
Speaker 3: but what is it about type bee blood or whatever
Speaker 3: other blood types that are attractive two mosquitos? Like what
Speaker 3: is the biology behind that? Why is the blood actually
Speaker 3: attractive for me? I think it is like a full
Speaker 3: scale picture of it's different indicators from that person beat
Speaker 3: co two chemical cues from the sweat microbiota or like
Speaker 3: the microbes in your speat as well. They find that attractive.
Speaker 3: That is more of an indicator of if you're attractive
Speaker 3: to mosquitoes or not.
Speaker 2: You just got your PhD, but you're already published on
Speaker 2: several papers I saw about thermal sensitivity and microbes and
Speaker 2: thermal stress responses and temperature. What does temperature have to
Speaker 2: do with how mosquitoes either look for a blood meal
Speaker 2: or just exist?
Speaker 3: Right? So I guess we'll frame this in the context
Speaker 3: of climate change. So climate change is going to influence
Speaker 3: mosquito population and disease transmission in several ways. And the
Speaker 3: first thing we think about is the expansion of mosquito
Speaker 3: habitats into new regions as temperatures rise, and also the precipitation.
Speaker 2: Patterns doctor Wergilmore says that altered seasonal patterns of mosquito
Speaker 2: activity can also lead to more transmission and longer transmission
Speaker 2: periods also increase disease risk. So climate change isn't just
Speaker 2: water levels rising on seassych cottagists.
Speaker 3: But you know that at the mosquito level, temperature can
Speaker 3: impact basically the growth rate and developmental rate of the mosquito,
Speaker 3: but also the rate of development for the pathogen inside
Speaker 3: of the mosquito. So we call this the extringic incubation
Speaker 3: period or the EIP, and EIP is the amount of
Speaker 3: time it takes for that pathogen to develop to traverse
Speaker 3: throughout the body of the mosquito and make it to
Speaker 3: the salivary glands where it then can be passed on
Speaker 3: when the mosquito is taking a new blood meal from
Speaker 3: an uninfected host.
Speaker 2: Okay, So that extrinsic incubation period of malaria is also
Speaker 2: called the period of sporogeny, and it describes the time
Speaker 2: it takes four parasites to develop in the mosquito from
Speaker 2: the moment they take in cometocites or sex cells via
Speaker 2: a tainted blood meal and when they mate in their
Speaker 2: guts and travel to the salivary glands to be splurted
Speaker 2: into your bloodstream. And according to Malaria, Parasite Development and Mosquitos,
Speaker 2: a nineteen ninety eight journal article in the Annual Review
Speaker 2: of Entomology, Plasmodium vivax one of the five species of
Speaker 2: the single celled protozoa which causes malaria in humans. It
Speaker 2: takes just nine days from the ingestion to doing the
Speaker 2: nasty and mating in the mosquito tummy to taking up
Speaker 2: space in their salivary glands of the bug to get
Speaker 2: into you. So that extrinsic incubation period is important because
Speaker 2: it means you can be infected and malaria can spread
Speaker 2: before you've ever even shown symptoms or gotten treated to
Speaker 2: kill it. And so that pathogen lives in the salivary glands.
Speaker 2: And can you tell me a little bit about how
Speaker 2: the bites work. Is they're a little bit of a
Speaker 2: blurf of stuff into you before they suck it back up.
Speaker 2: Like are they spitting a little bit into you before
Speaker 2: they start sucking it up or are there like anti inflammatories?
Speaker 2: What does that needle mouth have?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I guess we can look at the mosquito
Speaker 3: mouth part as like six different needles. So you have
Speaker 3: two of them which are going to be holding back
Speaker 3: the skin, one of them which is actually doing the
Speaker 3: piercing and the sucking, and then you have actually two
Speaker 3: of them that are sawing at the skin. Right ballad what.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they have.
Speaker 3: This very specialized mouthpart that is frightening when you look
Speaker 3: at pictures up close.
Speaker 2: Six they have six yea including two saws. That's amazing.
Speaker 2: That makes predator or like sci Fi monsters seem like
Speaker 2: so simple. Okay to hold it open like a surgeon.
Speaker 3: Mm hmm, two to saw.
Speaker 2: Okay, what is the sawing What are the sawing ones doing?
Speaker 4: Well?
Speaker 3: I guess it's helping them kind of get through the
Speaker 3: skin to the capullaries, the blood vessels or the capulariesh
Speaker 3: that's so cool. So we touched on some of the
Speaker 3: temperature work that I did previously, and I guess when
Speaker 3: we think about climate change, it's also just not risk
Speaker 3: of infection or increase mosquito bites based on the habitat
Speaker 3: you're in, but it's also the impact that it's going
Speaker 3: to have on the mosquito at an individual level. And
Speaker 3: so the work I was doing before was looking at
Speaker 3: how infection with some of these pathogens alter the mosquito
Speaker 3: in its ability to cope with temperature, and what that
Speaker 3: might mean for how we see the expansion of some
Speaker 3: of these mosquito ranges.
Speaker 2: Does it look like some of their numbers will reduce
Speaker 2: or are we looking at a huge increase?
Speaker 3: Yeah, So it really depends on the mosquito species and
Speaker 3: the habitat and their prior thermal history. So in some
Speaker 3: areas we expect a contraction of mosquito species, but in
Speaker 3: others we expect that to expand in their geographical range
Speaker 3: to increase. But a lot of things have to fall
Speaker 3: in place for disease transmission to take place, So it's
Speaker 3: really species dependent.
Speaker 2: When you're talking about the Salbary glands. And then I
Speaker 2: absolutely lost my shit hearing that they have six different
Speaker 2: needles in their Yeah, which that's like, I was really
Speaker 2: blowing my mind right out. Can you tell me more
Speaker 2: about that surgery that they perform. It sounds like laparoscopic surgery.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So the first time I saw a mosquito mouthpart,
Speaker 3: I was like, what is going on?
Speaker 2: But is this? Let's get into these twinkly sawmouthed, tiny
Speaker 2: little blood zombie fairies.
Speaker 3: So when a female mosquito pierces the skin, she has
Speaker 3: this basically this flexible lipke chief that scues up and
Speaker 3: it stays outside as the insect pushes in basically six
Speaker 3: needle like parts. And so two of these three needles
Speaker 3: are called the maxillae, and they have these tiny teeth
Speaker 3: that let the mosquito saw through human skin or through
Speaker 3: skin in general. And they're kind of like little drill
Speaker 3: bits and so yeah, they're so sharp we don't really
Speaker 3: fill the bite, but they do enough damage. And then
Speaker 3: we have another set of meat, the mandibles, that hold
Speaker 3: the tissue apart while the mosquito saws into the skin.
Speaker 3: And then the fifth needle is called the labrum, and
Speaker 3: it pierces the blood vessel.
Speaker 2: Wow, so they use some to spread it kind of
Speaker 2: like like it just sounds like they're doing surgery. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean they're surgeons.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And you have that fifth needle part that's piercing
Speaker 3: the blood vessel. It's looking for the blood vessel in
Speaker 3: that so it's like moving around in the skin to
Speaker 3: find the blood vessel.
Speaker 4: Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2: And then do they just do a folk into the
Speaker 2: blood vessel and then is that kind of like a
Speaker 2: needle or is that also kind of like a saw?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 2: How are they piercing and sucking at the same time.
Speaker 3: That is basically just piercing into the blood vessel, and
Speaker 3: they're able to suck up with that appendage as well.
Speaker 3: The other two appendages have done the basically the service
Speaker 3: of sawing. And then that last fifth needle, the labrum,
Speaker 3: is piercing but also sucking the sucking mouth part.
Speaker 2: And of course some mosquitoes fill up more than others,
Speaker 2: but the most common size mosquitos are around six millimeters
Speaker 2: long and they weigh a few milligrams at most, although
Speaker 2: they can drink two to three times their body weight
Speaker 2: at a time, and according to the Coachella Valley Mosquito
Speaker 2: and Vector Control District, mosquitos can take in anywhere from
Speaker 2: point one to point oh one millimeters of blood, and
Speaker 2: their website says for its size, that would be the
Speaker 2: equivalent of a person drinking as much as is in
Speaker 2: a bathtub, says the Coachella Valley Mosquito and Vector Control District.
Speaker 2: Let me tell you something, Coachella knows a little something
Speaker 2: about seasonal bingch drinking. When we're talking about teen mosquitos
Speaker 2: and big ones do all of their mouth parts function
Speaker 2: kind of the same.
Speaker 3: So, yeah, that proboscis and that piercing sucking mouth part
Speaker 3: is going to be the same for most of the species.
Speaker 3: It will change in size and the coloration might look different,
Speaker 3: but it serves the purpose.
Speaker 2: And when I picture a mosquito, I picture the ones
Speaker 2: that I probably grew up around and are more common
Speaker 2: to the West coast of the United States. But how
Speaker 2: is small and how big do they get?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so our biggest species of mosquito is our elephant mosquitos,
Speaker 3: so tuso runkities, and so this he is a big fella.
Speaker 3: She's a big fella, but she they have these tusks
Speaker 3: on them at the end of their proboscus. But they
Speaker 3: are quite large mosquitoes, not as large as crane flies,
Speaker 3: which people typically get confused with mosquitoes, but they are
Speaker 3: some of the larger of our mosquito species that we have.
Speaker 2: And crane flies they're not skeeter eaters, right, I thought
Speaker 2: forever like, oh those crane flies, don't worry, they eat mosquitoes.
Speaker 2: That's total horsepucky, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know it's okay because when I moved to
Speaker 3: Georgia with my family. The names for crane flies for
Speaker 3: so wild. It was like mosquito hawk, like hot killer,
Speaker 3: and I was like a hot killer. I'm like, what
Speaker 3: is that? But you know, crane flies don't actually live
Speaker 3: that long either. They are using nectar as their main
Speaker 3: resource for energy. But they are not predators to mosquitoes
Speaker 3: or people, right, They're just trying to live their life
Speaker 3: nope or people. You know, you kind of feel bad
Speaker 3: for them, like they're not the most graceful flyers. Anytime
Speaker 3: I've seen a crane fly, they're like trying to make
Speaker 3: it to the door of the window. And then you
Speaker 3: just like have this random man in Walmart who's just
Speaker 3: like kill that mosquito, and you're like, sir, that crane
Speaker 3: fly is just trying to live his best life, Like
Speaker 3: let him go.
Speaker 2: He just wants to go find some fresh grass.
Speaker 3: He does, like their main job is to mate, like
Speaker 3: they're born. They're like, let me go find some sugar
Speaker 3: and then let me go mate and then die.
Speaker 2: They just want to snack in a date.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, I mean he is all of us.
Speaker 2: So crane flies neither mosquitoes nor mosquito assassins. Just lonely,
Speaker 2: big bumbling mosquito look and sugar lovers who might accidentally
Speaker 2: saunter clumsily into a big box store to get slandered
Speaker 2: and then killed.
Speaker 3: So one of the big reasons I really enjoyed and
Speaker 3: was drawn to studying mosquitoes is because they're so diverse
Speaker 3: and so, as with most animal size does matter, And
Speaker 3: like other groups, there's considerable size range of mosquito adults,
Speaker 3: even though they all look the same to us. And
Speaker 3: so I think the biggest difference that I've seen would
Speaker 3: probably be Urana tani and then talkso run Kaiti, so
Speaker 3: Talkso run Kiti's and Dali nippers are quite large mosquitoes,
Speaker 3: and I think mass wise, between the smallest and the largest,
Speaker 3: it's maybe like a sixty fold mass different, so quite big.
Speaker 2: What about the teeny ones? How teeny teeny do they get?
Speaker 3: So I will say that I'm pretty biased because I
Speaker 3: work with a larger mosquito species, so eighties. Mosquitoes in
Speaker 3: general are a little bit hardier, a little bit bigger
Speaker 3: than a nave lines. But I will say that from
Speaker 3: my perspective that anofe species of mosquitoes tend to gear
Speaker 3: towards the smaller end compared to like an eighties or
Speaker 3: a qlex mosquito.
Speaker 2: When it comes to mating and finding a date, how
Speaker 2: are mosquitoes finding each other? Is their natural selection? Or
Speaker 2: is it like this world is so big, I'm small,
Speaker 2: you're small. Let's do it.
Speaker 3: I think you know, it would be so fun to
Speaker 3: be like, is there a hinge for mosquitoes where they
Speaker 3: make like a profile picture They're like, I'm from Alaska.
Speaker 3: But no, in all seriousness, So that buzzing noise that
Speaker 3: we find so irritating is actually emitted by mosquitos and
Speaker 3: it's used for communication but also mate location, and so
Speaker 3: male mosquitoes actually produce a higher frequency of sound versus
Speaker 3: female and they're using that to locate and pursue a
Speaker 3: mate and potentially avoid threats and other predators.
Speaker 2: Is there something evolutionarily about a really annoying noise that
Speaker 2: helps them mate? Or I wonder if you hear a high, high,
Speaker 2: high pitched annoying one, if that means it's a mail
Speaker 2: and it's not going to bite.
Speaker 3: You, right, that's interesting. So for me, I think it
Speaker 3: has to do more with their morphology, and I think
Speaker 3: it's the way that their wings are set on their body,
Speaker 3: So I think they're able to produce that higher frequency
Speaker 3: sound because they are oscillating so quickly, And maybe that
Speaker 3: was just like something that was used as a signal
Speaker 3: for identifying potential mates.
Speaker 2: So apparently mosquitoes can flap their tiny little wings up
Speaker 2: to one thousand times a second at a tremendously high
Speaker 2: frequency over seven hundred hearts, which is about the same
Speaker 2: pitch as a police siren, although it can vary depending
Speaker 2: on the mood they're trying to set. And according to
Speaker 2: some researchers at Cornell, male mosquitoes usually are thrumbing a
Speaker 2: buzz around six to seven hundred hertz, and ladies are
Speaker 2: a bit lower of four hundred hertz, But when they
Speaker 2: find each other and are about to mate, they are
Speaker 2: quite literally vibing. They're raising their buzz frequency in harmonics
Speaker 2: to about twelve hundred hertz, which is right at like
Speaker 2: the whistletone registers like Mariah Carey's high notes. Just two
Speaker 2: bugs just get it on, and the males have these
Speaker 2: bushy antennay to pick up on ladies' locations. Using seven
Speaker 2: thousand cents resells dedicated to hearing which is almost as
Speaker 2: many as you have now. In case you're like this
Speaker 2: seems like something I could get into and you need
Speaker 2: a meditation playlist, get yourself some inspo with this freshest
Speaker 2: hell paper from last month surveillance of mosquitos harnessing their
Speaker 2: buzzing sound, which concluded that yes, mosquito sounds are species
Speaker 2: specific and sex specific and important for communication, and they
Speaker 2: can even relay fed or unfed status. Cornell researcher doctor
Speaker 2: David hoy has said they are interacting on the fly
Speaker 2: an in song. So they're kind of like hummingbirds that
Speaker 2: are surgeons a little bit, yeah maybe, but that are
Speaker 2: also sparkly.
Speaker 3: They're also sparkly, you know, hummingbirds and mosquitoes kind of
Speaker 3: they're fast, they're kind of sparkly, and they have that
Speaker 3: weird mouth art right.
Speaker 2: The tiniest hummingbirds ever. They just happen to like meat,
Speaker 2: which is you yea some of them. Yeah, but we
Speaker 2: have one bazillion questions from listeners, which we were not
Speaker 2: going to toss it you all at once, but can
Speaker 2: I ask them from listeners?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Amazing. So next week we return with all the tips
Speaker 2: on how to repel them. What you can spray on
Speaker 2: your skin, what to do in your yard? We talk Zeka, Dangay, malaria,
Speaker 2: West Nile, how much to worry about each of them,
Speaker 2: and so many more practicalities that will make you itch
Speaker 2: and scratch a little less. Meanwhile, ask Mozzi people amazing
Speaker 2: questions because it's worth the wait. Now. You can follow
Speaker 2: doctor r Gilmour on x at Mazzifowl linked in the
Speaker 2: show notes. She's on Instagram at Foxyfoul, which is also
Speaker 2: linked style and mosquito appreciation in equal measures. She's lovely.
Speaker 2: We'll be back next week with more of her wisdom
Speaker 2: and her bug facts and my personal giddiness. We're at
Speaker 2: Ologies on Instagram and Twitter. I'm at Aliward on both.
Speaker 2: Smologies is our new spin off show in its own
Speaker 2: subscribable feed, kid and Classroom safe shorter cuts of classic episodes.
Speaker 2: You can subscribe at the link in the show notes.
Speaker 2: That's Smologies. Please do tell friends with kids. Port of
Speaker 2: mouth is everything to us, so tell a friend. Ologies
Speaker 2: merch is available at ologiesmirch dot com. You can become
Speaker 2: a patron at patreon dot com. Slash Ologies. Our ologies
Speaker 2: podcast Facebook group is admined by Aaron Talbert. Professional transcripts
Speaker 2: by Aveline Mallick of The Wordery. Noel Dilworth is our
Speaker 2: scheduling producer. Susan Hale is our managing director, who recently
Speaker 2: celebrated a birthday. Even though she tends to lay low
Speaker 2: on her birthday. We love you, Susan, deal with it.
Speaker 2: This episode was edited by Jake Chafe and lead editor
Speaker 2: who has earned her scally mosquito stripes. Mercedes Maitland of
Speaker 2: Maitland Audio. Nick Thorburn wrote the theme music. And if
Speaker 2: you stick around to the end of the episode, I
Speaker 2: Tell you a secret. And this week I just realized
Speaker 2: that I said tell a friend. And there was this
Speaker 2: grocery store chain. I must have been like three, and
Speaker 2: it was called Alpha Beta and their commercials were like
Speaker 2: Alpha Beta, tell a friend. And I took that very literally.
Speaker 2: And there was a friend of mine in the neighborhood
Speaker 2: named Tom who was technically my first husband. We were three,
Speaker 2: we were set up. We had a ceremony. Actually scratch that,
Speaker 2: his name was Tad. I'm sorry about that. Tad pirs
Speaker 2: husband's always gets the shaft. But anyway, having been instructed
Speaker 2: by Alpha Beta via a commercial to please tell a friend,
Speaker 2: I was like, hey, tad alpha beta, I did it,
Speaker 2: and I hope he still remembers. But ologies tell a friend,
Speaker 2: you can just say the word. You don't have to elaborate.
Speaker 2: I think either way it's a pretreciate it. But anyway, all right,
Speaker 2: that's it. Next week, more mosquitoes. How do you repel them?
Speaker 2: What do you do? What do you do? What do
Speaker 2: you do?
Speaker 4: Why we got you? Bye bye?
Speaker 2: Pacodermatology, homology or doo zoology, lithology, technology, meteorology, no, pedatology, nanthology, seriology, selenology.
Speaker 2: It's just the mosquitoes.
Speaker 3: They love me.