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Insects species outnumber mammals by about 1,000 to one. Most entomologists agree that insects do not feel emotion – at least, not in the same way that humans do.
Answer: Since they eat and digest blood or nectar, mosquitoes do poop. Their waste can either be in a semi-solid or liquid form. Answer: There are at least 2,700 known mosquito species in the world, with some reports as high as 3,000. There are only around 176 species that live in the U.S.
Mosquitoes don’t sleep like we do, but people often wonder what these pests do during times of day when they aren’t active. When they aren’t flying to locate a host to feed on, mosquitoes sleep, or rather rest, and are inactive unless disturbed.
Mosquitoes have kidneys (Malpighian tubules) that excrete excess salt and water from their body fluid. As they take in a blood meal, they urinate to dispose of the waste products.
There is no limit to the number of mosquito bites one of the insects can inflict. A female mosquito will continue to bite and feed on blood until she is full. After they have consumed enough blood, the mosquito will rest for a couple of days (usually between two to three days) before laying her eggs.
While they can seem pointless and purely irritating to us humans, mosquitoes do play a substantial role in the ecosystem. Mosquitoes form an important source of biomass in the food chain—serving as food for fish as larvae and for birds, bats and frogs as adult flies—and some species are important pollinators.
Without mosquitoes, thousands of plant species would lose a group of pollinators. “The ecological effect of eliminating harmful mosquitoes is that you have more people. That’s the consequence,” says Strickman. Many lives would be saved; many more would no longer be sapped by disease.
Not all species of flies compost equally. The most effective composters are the blowflies, flesh flies, bush flies and soldier flies. Think of it this way: if we lived in a world without flies, our streets and parks would be full of dead animals, rotting leaves and logs and nasty surprises left by dogs.
When flies land on a series of plants to feed on nectar, they spread the pollen between flowers and help fertilise the next generation of plants. As pollinators, flies perform a valuable role in the ecological community for our native plants, and are also helping farmers.
According to Dr. Pritt, for the most part, eating a bug isn’t cause for worry. In general, your body will digest arthropods, which include arachnids like spiders, mites, and ticks, and insects such as gnats, flies, mosquitoes, fleas, and bedbugs, “just like any other food,” she says.
To make matters worse, several species of tsetse fly can transmit diseases. One of the most dangerous is a parasite that causes “sleeping sickness”, or “human African trypanosomiasis”to give it its official name. Without treatment, an infection is usually fatal.
Perhaps the closest we can say is that it’s a little salty and a little sweet. It’s a bit like trying to describe the way a honeybee sees a flower in ultraviolet hues invisible to the human eye, or how a bat eavesdrops on sonar waves we can’t hear, Vosshall says. Likewise, a female mosquito can taste things we can’t.
If you feel like you inhaled the bug and you think it could be in your lungs, tell a parent or another adult. Usually this will make you cough and feel a little uncomfortable. Your mom or dad will want to check with your doctor. Unlike your stomach, your lungs won’t digest the bug.