the most dangerous animal, hands down.

Mosquitoes affect hundreds of million of lives across the world due to their uncanny ability to transmit debilitating and deadly diseases. In terms of public health, these insects act as flying syringes loaded with microscopic pathogens such as Dengue, Zika, Yellow fever viruses, protozoans and worms.
everywhere with a biological payload

Mosquitoes are found on every continents except Antarctica. But it is on the equatorial band that their impact is most felt. Did you know that Malaria used to be endemic in England and Scandinavia at the turn of the 19th century? Mosquitoes like Aedes aegypti and its cousin, the tiger mosquito Aedes albopictus, that used to be respectively restricted to sub-Saharan Africa and South East Asia, have now invaded many parts of the world.
Mosquitoes are small but pack a punch.

Mosquitoes, such as Aedes are small insects no longer than 5 mm long. Only the females blood-feed to acquire sufficient proteins for egg development. During a typical 1 minute blood meal, the female will triple her weight. Try to picture tripling your own weight on a protein smoothie.
chosen by a few

There are about 3,500 mosquito species on Earth, of which 95% require some form of blood-meal. Only a small fraction of about 100 species prefers biting human (anthropophily) over non-human animals.
Sucking blood is an old family business.

While the oldest fossilized blood-fed female is 46 million years old, these small creatures have been roaming the planet 4 times that long (roughly 200 MY) alongside dinosaurs, have seen the emergence of mammals and the recent arrival of Man.
Blind mosquitoes will smell you out.

There are many reasons for their ecological success, but smelling is their forte. They can even find a human host with their eyes "shut". Mosquitoes exhibit an uncanny sense of smell due to smell receptors located on their antennae, maxillary palps and even their mouthparts (see below). These insects can discriminate between odorant enantiomers and other close chemical analogs.
Mosquitoes have two noses.

The main nose of mosquitoes is the antennae (red), which are long filiform and supple appendages whose function is also to detect air vibration such as the wind beats generated by females.
A secondary nose constituted of the last segment of the maxillary palps (orange) is more narrow in terms its detection capabilities (see Aedes odorant receptors here). The proboscis is mainly a taste organ but its most distal segment (blue labellum) may also marginally function as an olfactory organ.
A secondary nose constituted of the last segment of the maxillary palps (orange) is more narrow in terms its detection capabilities (see Aedes odorant receptors here). The proboscis is mainly a taste organ but its most distal segment (blue labellum) may also marginally function as an olfactory organ.