1. Fact #1: There are at least 3,500 named species of mosquitos, but only a few hundred of them bite or ~bug~ us humans.
2. The Aedes aegypti and the Aedes albopictus species of mosquitos are ones that transmit the Zika virus, dengue fever, and the chikungunya virus.
3. The average mosquito lives for a little less than two months. Males usually live for up to 10 days, whereas females can live up to 8 weeks in ideal conditions.
4. The ones doing all the bloodsucking are the female mosquitos, which she does in order to feed her brood of upwards of 300 eggs.
5. And an adult female mosquito can lay eggs every 10 days.
6. And for the record, a mosquito actually uses six "needlelike" mouthparts to suck on your blood.
7. Take heart, though: it would take 1.1 million mosquitoes to totally drain all the blood from an adult human.
8. Male mosquitoes, meanwhile, live the sweet life and dine on plant nectar or sap.
9. Mosquitos are drawn to humans by smelling the carbon dioxide we breathe out and sensing our body heat.
10. And that whining, buzzy sound they make comes from their wings...
11. Which, FYI: female mosquitos can beat their wings up to 500 times per second — which is how male mosquitoes find them.
12. And yes, some people are prone to more mosquito bites than others, based on their blood type, metabolism, and whether or not they've had a beer recently.
13. As well as pregnant women...
14. And people who wear dark clothing.
15. They aren't actually as obsessed with us humans as we'd think — mosquitoes also feed on mammals, birds, and even amphibians.
16. When you're bitten, that itching you can't help but scratch isn't even from the bite itself, but rather from anticoagulants and saliva they inject into you.
17. More reasons to love air conditioning / also winter? Mosquitos either hibernate or die when it gets to be under 50 degrees.
This post was translated from Portuguese.