Close-Up Footage of a Mosquito Sucking Blood

Nice...must be that you don't notice it happening until towards the end?

"he" wouldn't' suck blood if he was a he.. Only the females do.

I wonder if mosquitos actually "suck" the blood. They don't have diaphragms; do they have other muscles that create negative pressure - or do they rely on the intravascular pressure of the victim to move the blood? Anyone know?

You would appear to be correct, Bearfoot. I've corrected the post.

I. Fucking. Hate. Mosquitos.

"Love" the euphoric leg lift towards the end...maybe this is where all the romantic movies got that move from. :)

Was sooooo waiting for the SPLAT at the end.

:(

I know that mosquito. She works at my credit card company.

Mosquitos rely on hair tube physichs and intravascular pressure to get their blood, afaik.
They also mix the blood with a thinning agent to get it to flow easily through their system. It's this thinning agent that makes us itch afterwards.

As benign as this appears, lets not forget nasty little things like dengue fever, rift valley fever, west nile virus, yellow fever, malaria and 5 types of encephalitis (brain swelling) illnesses that affect both man and beast.

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/diseases/list_mosquitoborne.htm for those interested....

I've always thought the ideal way to kill mosquitos would be to fill up something like a blood sausage with animal blood and a fast acting mosquito poison.

Then, just let them eat.

BLEH...that made me itchy just watching it.

Any better birders than I know what birds are singing in the background? I hear at least three I think.

Ew, and wow. Very fascinating. Wikkid, I also laughed at the Hollywood-starlet lift of the leg. So dainty! You could practically hear her tiny sigh.

It's all good John, you're forgiven.

:)

Fun way to kill a mosquito is to flex your muscles and trap their probiscous in there.. they'll eventually fill up so much they literally explode in a karmic death.

Manticore: I can at least distinguish a chaffinch there (the most distinctive song heard for example at 0:20) - which would btw most likely place the video to Europe or western Asia, so low to no risk of malaria or dengue :) There might also be a blackbird, but not completely sure about that.

Mosquito Vampire !!

Ah, ok that explains why I don't hear anything familiar. Thanks mie!

@manticore+mie: The YouTube profile says the uploader lives in Jordan, if that helps...

Does anyone know of any useful purpose that mosquitos might serve? I'm being serious. If you know of one, let me know. Otherwise, my vote is to completely eradicate them all. Mosquito genocide. I certainly wouldn't lose any sleep over it. Those blood sucking little bastards are the most annoying creatures on the planet. I'm taking a canoe/camping trip this weekend in the Congaree swamp and am mentally preparing myself to do battle with them. And I will lose. There are just... too... many... of them. The last time I was there, I felt like firing a flamethrower in a circular motion to keep them away from me. I'll have to get a blood transfusion by the time I get home. Death to all mosquitos!

@Red Bunny: both male and female mosquitos are nectar-eaters, and polinate plants. It just so happens that the female sucks blood to get nutrients necessary to develop eggs. So while my knee-jerk reaction is to agree with you, we sorta need mosquitos. Darn.

Thanks ragazzambulante. I didn't know that. But couldn't we just keep bees around to do that work for us instead? And if the females only suck blood to develop eggs to make more mosquitos, then that's bad news for us from every conceivable angle. Perhaps the world needs more mosquito egg omlettes? Maybe mosquitos carry the cure for cancer or something like that and we just haven't figured it out yet. There's got to be something. Other than the obvious moral reasons (not purposely bringing a species to extinction), I still see no need to keep them around. All joking aside, we should not really eradicate them, obviously. But why do we feel this way? Mosquito experts unite. We need a reason. This is very strange to me. It seems like the mosquito is the only animal on earth that people seem to not shed at tear at the thought of it's demise. I can't think of another. Very strange indeed.

We've just come back from Portugul, and a nearly perfect holiday was RUINED by mosquito bites, especially near the river in Tavira. Like Red Bunny, I wonder what purpose these critters serve as they seem to have been sent to earth to aggrevate humans