Fun Facts about Mosquitoes

"People who claim they don't let the little things bother them have never slept in a room with a single mosquito." 

We've been breeding mosquitoes.  Mind you, it was unintentional.  It was merely a consequence of being über prepared for the occasional water outage in our home, which is a crisis if you have to clean up a kid who has barfed on himself.


Eric, A.K.A. The Problem Solver, has kept a large bucket of water next to our bathtub for such emergencies.  Yesterday when the faucets were dry, Eric scooped some water from the bucket to wash his hands.  That's when he noticed a ton of creepy-crawly-wormy things swimming in the water.

Mosquito larvae (photo from Wikipedia)

Here's what they look like, however this is the equivalent of glamour portrait of these little devils.  Remove the brilliant blue background and add some incessant squirming, and it will give you a better idea of what we saw.


These are mosquito larvae.  This is stage #2 of the life cycle.  First the mama has to lay eggs on the water. Those eggs hatch into these adorable creatures.  After molting four times, they morph into a pupa.  Finally they hatch into a blood-sucking parasite, and the circle of life continues.


Unlike the average person who would immediately dump all 10 gallons of water down the drain and set the bucket on fire, Isaac and I used this opportunity to conduct some science experiments.  Here are our findings:


1) These guys don't necessarily die if you poor bleach into the bucket.
2) They seem to enjoy swimming in beer.
3) They stop squirming if you cut them in half, although the the tail twitches for a few seconds.

So what did we learn from this experience?  I'm going to wash my hands in pure bleach from here on out.