When I was a child, in the summer, I would often cool off in the yard with my grandmother, but I didn't know what happened, and the name of the flower mosquito was spread, and in order not to be bitten, I basically didn't go out to cool off in the evening.
The flower mosquito is scientifically called Aedes albaceus, but because the black and white pattern on the body is somewhat similar to the pattern of the tiger, it is also called the Asian tiger mosquito.
Calling this mosquito "tiger mosquito" is really not exaggerated, other mosquitoes bite people, leave you a bag just fine, not very itchy, disappear quickly, but the flower mosquito bite will pick up several bags, not only very itchy, but also slow, sometimes two weeks there is a print there.
In order to better suck blood, mosquitoes release some substances when they bite people, including thrombin, formic acid and so on.
These substances are foreign to the human body, and the immune system will initiate clearance instructions, which is an itchy bag, which is actually an allergic reaction of the body.
The reason why the bites of flower mosquitoes are unbearable is that they are invasive species, and our immune system is not very adapted to the substances they release.
If you look closely at the bite patterns of mosquitoes, you will find that mosquitoes are very greedy, and if you don't bother them, they will continue to suck blood until they suck their stomachs bulging, and it is difficult to fly.
This voracious blood-sucking pattern allows them to briefly enter a rest phase to digest the blood they have sucked.
By the way, every time mosquitoes suck blood, they stimulate the corresponding glands to secrete hormones, so that the eggs tend to mature, and the blood suckers are female mosquitoes, so it can be said that they suck blood to lay eggs.
The voracious blood-sucking pattern of mosquitoes may reduce the chances of contact with their hosts (I don't know if it's their evolutionary advantage), but it's certainly easier for hosts like humans to be shot to death.
Compared with these mosquitoes, the blood-sucking mode of flower mosquitoes is very smart, they are "repeated bites", which is equivalent to shooting a shot for a place, it is difficult to be shot to death, which is why being bitten by flower mosquitoes will pick up several packages.
One reason why flower mosquitoes can use this blood-sucking mode is that their digestion ability is relatively strong (in fact, mosquitoes have a strong digestive ability, generally three or four hours may be able to consume a stomach of blood), can suck blood while digesting quickly.
At the same time, because they do not suck up every time, the flower mosquitoes almost do not rest in the matter of blood sucking, and they are trying to find targets both day and night.
Without rest, repeated bites, and more poisonous, you say people are not annoying? So it's not an exaggeration to say that flower mosquitoes have taken us away from the cool – especially before mobile phones were less widespread.
So, where is the flower mosquito?
The origin of the flower mosquito is the tropical region of Southeast Asia, and since the 1960s, as global trade has become more frequent, the flower mosquito has also taken advantage of this "outlet" to develop the territory wildly.
It first spread in Asia and traveled all the way north.
By the 1980s, it had entered Europe and the Americas and caused devastation, first discovered in Africa in 1990 and flooded in 1991.
Global distribution of Aedes albopictus, Albopict, 2015
Because Australia has always been a bit devastated by invasive species, they have had stricter control of invasive species for a long time, with entomological monitoring at ports and airports, and flower mosquitoes only taking root in Australia and New Zealand after 2006.
Flower mosquitoes are now found almost everywhere in the world, so in 2008, flower mosquitoes won the title of "one of the 100 most serious invasive species in the world".
All the creatures that earned this title were not vegetarians, but invasive species that wreaked havoc.
In China, flower mosquitoes were first recorded in Guangdong and Yunnan provinces, and they entered China around the 1980s – less than 50 years ago, most likely through the import of fruit and timber.
Flower mosquitoes are super adaptable
Different creatures are brought from their origin to other regions every day in the world, but very few can really make waves in other places, and flower mosquitoes have done it, which has a lot to do with their innate conditions.
First, there are their eggs.
Other mosquitoes may need to fly to take the adult worms to other places, but flower mosquitoes are fine as long as the eggs are taken away, which can be very difficult to detect and prevent.
The eggs of flower mosquitoes have multiple characteristics such as drought tolerance, hardiness, diapause, etc. Simply put, they can remain active when conditions do not allow them, and then hatch when conditions permit.
Secondly, flower mosquitoes have very low environmental requirements for reproduction.
Flower mosquitoes are thought to have outperformed or even eliminated other species with similar breeding habitats from the beginning of their spread to other regions and habitats, and even in some habitats, the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which is also a strong invasive species, has been suppressed to the point of almost disappearing.
This is because the spawning ground of flower mosquitoes is very wide, from water bodies to damp dead leaves, even if it is just a drop of water can come to a wave.
When people control mosquitoes, they will reduce the place where mosquitoes can lay eggs, which is one of the most effective mosquito control methods at present, and the mosquitoes in a single spawning place are easily controlled.
Unlike flower mosquitoes, their habitat is far more than just a human community, and their blood source is only about 5.2% human, which makes control particularly difficult.
Third, the tolerance of flower mosquitoes has been getting stronger.
As we said earlier, China's flower mosquitoes were originally active in Yunnan and Guangdong, but now even Beijing is already their "hunting ground".
Their hardiness and tolerance to polluted water bodies have been getting stronger, which may be related to their super reproductive ability, after all, the population is large, and the probability of genetic mutation is also high.
In the end, the biggest destructive force of the flower mosquito is not that it will be itchy when bitten, but its super ability to spread diseases.
They are themselves the transmitters of many epidemic mosquito-borne diseases, including yellow fever virus, dengue and chikungunya, and their repetitive bite nature greatly increases the probability of disease transmission.
Now that the weather is starting to heat up and mosquitoes are buzzing in many areas, if you are being infested by mosquitoes, you can minimize the surrounding water and keep it clean and tidy, mosquitoes do not like this habitat.
Source: Popular Science China