National Mosquito Day

Pictured: A female mosquito of the Culicidae family (Culiseta longiareolata). Size: about 10mm length.

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When is National Mosquito Day Celebrated?

This holiday is celebrated in the United States every July 23. • See July Holidays / See Weird July Holidays

How is this Holiday Celebrated?

This holiday is celebrated by learning about the mosquito and passing on the information, both good & bad.

Mosquito Facts:

Mosquito (from the Spanish or Portuguese meaning little fly) is a common insect in the family Culicidae (from the Latin culex meaning midge or gnat). Mosquitoes resemble crane flies (family Tipulidae) and chironomid flies (family Chironomidae), with which they are sometimes confused by the casual observer.

Mosquitoes go through four stages in their life-cycle: egg, larva, pupa, and adult or imago. Adult females lay their eggs in water, which can be a salt-marsh, a lake, a puddle, a natural reservoir on a plant, or an artificial water container such as a plastic bucket. The first three stages are aquatic and last 5-14 days, depending on the species and the ambient temperature; eggs hatch to become larvae, then pupae. The adult mosquito emerges from the pupa as it floats at the water surface. Adults live for 4-8 weeks.

Mosquitoes have mouthparts that are adapted for piercing the skin of plants and animals. While males typically feed on nectar and plant juices, the female needs to obtain nutrients from a "blood meal" before she can produce eggs.

There are about 3,500 species of mosquitoes found throughout the world. In some species of mosquito, the females feed on humans, and are therefore vectors for a number of infectious diseases affecting millions of people per year.

Mosquito Prefer Some People Over Others:

The preferential victim's sweat simply smells better than others because of the proportions of the carbon dioxide, octenol and other compounds that make up body odour. The powerful semiochemical that triggers the mosquito's keen sense of smell is Nonanal. A large part of the mosquito’s sense of smell, or olfactory system, is devoted to sniffing out human targets. Of 72 types of odour receptor on its antennae, at least 27 are tuned to detect chemicals found in perspiration. wikipedia

Origin of this Holiday

Our research did not find the creator, or the origin of this day. We did however find that this holiday has been celebrated for years. There is plenty of documentation to support that this holiday does indeed exist. This is referred to as a "National" day. However, we did not find any congressional records or presidential proclamations for this day. Even though we didn't, this is still a holiday to celebrate.

We found recognition about this holiday from:

Calendar sites and personal Internet sites that blog and share information about this holiday. We especially found discussion on many garden sites & sites that talk about pest control.

Fun How-To Articles:

• How to build A Scarecrow

• How to have a Scavenger Hunt

External links

• Mosquito at the Open Directory Project

• A film clip describing The Life Cycle of the Mosquito is available for free download at the Internet Archive

• Mosquito Pest Control Information - National Pesticide Information Center

• Mosquito Fact Sheet highlights prevention tips as well as information on habits, habitat and health threats

Resources: This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses some material from Wikipedia/article mosquito/and other related pages. Top Photo by: wiki