The Deadliest Foe: The Mosquito - History, Impact & Disease Prevention | Outdoor Protection & Travel Safety Guide

The biggest flaw of this book should be mentioned right away: it has no photographs except on the cover. There are rather small black-and-white drawings and descriptions of various mosquitoes, but I would have liked to have seen photographs of the species in our area, especially those that are currently overwintering in our house. However, the authors provide good written clues as to which mosquito is haunting our bedroom: it's a variety of 'Culex pipiens,' the common house mosquito.Unfortunately, according to this book, 'Culex pipiens' also happens to be the most common transmitter of West Nile disease from birds to humans. I guess the good news is that if I'm raising these little buggers in the basement sump or the overflow drain in the bathtub, they won't have much of a chance to suck blood from an infected bird and transfer the virus to me.The authors actually wax rather poetic on this book's main subject:"With their glassy wings, delicate legs, and seemingly fragile bodies, mosquitoes are nevertheless a powerful, even fatal presence, in our lives. What creature could be more intriguing?"Even though I was reading this book with a specific purpose--to figure out how to get rid of our unwanted house pests--I was soon drawn into authors' engaging, authoritative natural history of mosquitoes, especially their role in repelling unimmunized invaders from their territory. Africa acquired the reputation as 'the white man's grave' because of the diseases (mainly malaria and yellow fever) that mosquitoes passed on to would-be conquerors.Mosquitoes show up almost everywhere. I once went on a canoe trip through Canada's Northwest Territories in August, and on the days when it wasn't actually snowing, mosquitoes were a major pest. According to the authors, "In the Arctic, evolution permitted the rise of such mosquitoes as 'Aedes communis,' a mosquito that lays its eggs in tundra wetlands. The eggs survive subzero winter quite nicely. When the ice thaws and the water rises, they hatch almost instantaneously...No one who has been in their range during their short feeding period will ever forget the clouds of mosquitoes that interfere with breathing and cover every exposed inch of an intruder's body."Readers will learn almost everything they ever wanted to know about mosquitoes from this book. For instance, the amber-encased mosquito that showed up in Stephen Spielberg's film of "Jurassic Park" could not have contained dinosaur DNA, because it was a 'Toxorynchites'--a giant mosquito that is one of the few mosquitoes that will never drink blood. That scientific booboo must have had entymologists rolling in the aisles.Well, I'm going to put a mosquito dunk in our basement sump and seal off the overflow drain in the bathtub to discourage our indoor population of 'Culex pipiens.' I suggest you read "Mosquitoes" whether or not you have unwanted house guests, because it has some fascinating information about our specie's deadliest foe.