Mosquito

Mosquito battle analysis

Anopheles gambiae is a 3 mm insect weighing about 2 mg, and on the absolute battle scale it sits at the very bottom for Size, Attack and Defense. It has no jaws to bite with and no sting. Any direct hit kills it. What it has instead is a precision system for getting blood without being noticed.

A female looking for a meal follows carbon dioxide from a host's breath from tens of metres away, then uses sight and, at close range, body heat to land. Her proboscis holds six stylets; the sharp labrum and saw-edged maxillae slide into skin with micronewton forces, and saliva with anticoagulants keeps blood flowing. She can drink a meal as heavy as herself and fly off, usually at night and often indoors, when people are asleep.

The mosquito's reputation as the deadliest animal comes from what it carries, not what it does in a fight. Malaria parasites transmitted in its saliva caused an estimated 597,000 deaths in 2023, almost all in Africa. That effect appears days later and only in susceptible hosts, so the ratings credit it partly under Special while keeping Attack at the floor. In a direct contest it relies on low inertia, small size and good senses to avoid being hit.

Habitat & range

An. gambiae lives across sub-Saharan Africa, especially in humid savanna and farmland near people. Larvae grow in small, sunlit pools of fresh water such as puddles, hoof prints and rice fields. Adults rest and feed in and around houses.

Diet & hunting

Adults of both sexes drink plant sugars. Females also take blood, preferring humans, to develop their eggs. Larvae filter food from the water surface. Mosquitoes are prey for many animals: dragonflies, bats, birds, spiders and, as larvae, fish and other aquatic predators.

Social life

Not social. Males form mating swarms at dusk, and females enter the swarms to mate; males and females tune their wingbeat tones to find each other.

Conservation

Not Evaluated: no IUCN Red List assessment exists for this species in the sources located. It is abundant and the target of major control efforts because of malaria.

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