Alright, I’m one of those bleeding heart woke lefty socialist types, and the last thing I’d ever want this page to be accused of is sexism. For the majority of animals – from ants to elephants – I’d go out on a limb and say that the females are typically way more interesting, industrious and just generally cooler creatures than their male counterparts.

However, there’s one animal for which this couldn’t be more wrong – the mosquito. I’m just gonna come right out and say it… female mosquitoes suck! (See what I did there? 👀)

Basically every negative perception you have of mosquitoes is actually a negative perception of FEMALE mosquitoes. Let’s explore a few reasons how and why female mosquitoes suck.

We’ll start with that nifty face-straw that she uses to drink your blood. Turns out it’s not just one long sucker – it’s a collection of six needles, each of which pierces the skin simultaneously in order to maximise the chance of hitting a blood vessel. Two of these needles even have tiny teeth on them, used to saw through your skin more efficiently. Isn’t that wonderful? Oh, and mosquitoes can track you down from ten metres away by sensing the carbon dioxide in your breath.

Female mosquitoes drink blood because it contains proteins which are important to the development of baby mosquitoes. So next time you slap a mosquito who’s biting you, remember that she was just trying her best to be a good mother – you monster.

Feeling guilty? Let’s look at the bigger picture…

The mosquito in the photo above is from the genus Aedes (you can tell by the black and white stripes on the hind legs) and I reckon there’s a good chance I took this photo just after she tracked me down, pierced me with her six death-blades, and gorged herself on my blood. Aedes mosquitoes are responsible for global transmission of Dengue, Yellow Fever, Zika and Chikungunya. The genus Culex is responsible for the spread of Japanese Encephalitis and West Nile Virus, while Anopheles is the world’s supplier of the big one – malaria. In 2020, there were over 600,000 deaths due to malaria, and some historians have estimated that mosquito-borne diseases have killed almost HALF of all the humans that have EVER lived.

You’ll only ever catch these diseases from a female mosquito though! Male mosquitoes are WAY cooler.

Check out the male mosquito in this photograph. He’s got wild disco antennae and is dancing on a strand of spider web. He doesn’t want to suck your blood. He’s quite happy with the plant juices and nectar that he consumes on the daily.

Male mosquitoes are incredibly friendly when compared to their murderous female counterparts. They still seek out humans, but not because they want to slowly devour you, they just want to chill. In fact, they hang out with you because you’re a fantastic wingman.

You are a lady-mosquito-magnet, and lady mosquitoes are all a male mosquito is looking for in life. He’s got a pretty small brain, and he doesn’t get distracted by delusions of purpose or fulfilment. He just wants to spend time with you in the hopes you might set him up with one of your blood-sucking friends. Those bushy antennae even contain enhanced auditory receptors designed to detect the seductive high-pitched whine of a female mosquito.

While you might be tempted to avoid killing male mosquitoes, I totally understand if you don’t have time to closely inspect the width of a mosquito’s antennae when it lands on you. And anyway, mosquitoes are one of the few animals you probably shouldn’t feel too guilty about murdering. There’s an estimated 110 trillion mosquitoes globally, meaning every single person on the planet would have to go outside and personally kill 14,000 mosquitoes if we wanted to send them extinct.

Good luck with that!

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Female Mosquito (Aedes sp.) and Male Mosquito (Culex sp.), Berry Springs and Romsey, Australia