I'll Be Your Pest for the Night

Hi everyone! My name is Moss and I will be your pest for the night. I promise to make you feel irritable and uncomfortable. So scratch away. My name wasn’t Moss when I hatched out of my pupa. It was Mosquito, but a few hours later I heard that Mosquito had a bad reputation and was also hard to spell, so I shortened it and made it easier for everyone, especially me. I belong to the Anopheles tribe, one of our 5 tribes. Our females are the sole distributors of Malaria, the disease that can kill all living things such as humans and animals.

My main interest in life is…, just a sec, look at that idiot in the armchair! He just rolled up his sleeve, put his fat, juicy arm on the armrest and closed his eyes. I can’t miss a jab like this. Be back soon.

W h e r e  w a s I?

I’m now so full of blood I can hardly talk. That guy’s blood was okay, but not great. Full of fat. It’ll catch up with him one of these days. So I was telling you that our main interest in life is blood. Any kind as long as it’s from a living thing like an animal or a human. I like humans the best. So when I see a target I stick my proboscis in, germs and all, and draw up as much as my belly can hold, all the time watching for a sudden movement above me. That means a folded newspaper, a swatter, a hand. But I’m a snappy mover and they’ll all miss. I make my hasty getaway in the direction opposite to where they are aiming. If I’m too slow, I could end up as a red splat on the wall!

My proboscis is an amazing piece of design. Could have been a job done by one of these teenage start-up groups. The proboscis is actually my mouth but designed to act as a stinging instrument. It isn't just one tiny needle. It's a sophisticated barrel of six very, very thin sharp needles, each of which pierces the skin, finds blood vessels and sucks. And boy, do we know where to bite, I mean suck.

Once it’s through the skin, it sucks up blood but it also deposits anything that was on the proboscis. Like germs, for instance. Malaria germs? Sure! A favorite of ours. A treat! I bet you didn’t realize that we hold the record for the most deaths caused by disease. We deliver and the malaria germ does the rest. Great partnership!

We all have this proboscis, but only our females suck blood. It’s the protein in the blood that they’re after. They need it for the production of eggs. Once the malaria parasite is inside the human, it multiplies and causes malaria. The male of the species does the heavy work, like flying around, zooming up and down and distracting the target so the female can work without interruption. The male is smart. Both sexes are very small and very light. So light that they can walk on water.

Being light in weight has both advantages and disadvantages. The disadvantages are trouble. If you are so light that you walk on water, it means that you never bathe. And if you never bathe, you are dirty. From day one. Anything that can cling or fasten itself to you remains on you. No need to look. I promise you it’s there. And among all the bugs and stuff on you are some of the worst bad guys in town. Yep, the malaria thing.

According to the Book of Knowledge, otherwise known as Google and the World Malaria Report 2018, there were 219 million cases of malaria globally in 2017 and 435 000 malaria deaths. No joke. But a big win for us.

At this moment there’s a major war going on, between the Malaria bug and the Corona virus. This Corona thing came out of nowhere. We heard about it years ago but it was someplace in China. We malaria bugs prefer African blood. All was peaceful between us. We stayed in Africa and they stayed in China. Then they must have heard about the quality and taste of the blood in darkest Africa and they flooded in. Now we’re at war. We want the blood as soon as we can. They want the whole human, It’s not funny. The odds are more or less even, although we are still killing more than them, but the talk is that they are multiplying faster than us. It remains to be seen. Whatever the outcome, we like it. War means blood and blood means our women are happy. Can anyone think of a better way to keep the women of the tribe happy?

I wanted to attach a Moss family tree here so you can see where I’m from and study my pedigree, but alas, life is too short for such things and anyway, I don’t really have that information. What I do have is my autobiography: A simple tale of existence.

After my mother hit a target and feasted on good quality blood, she headed straight to the fishpond outside. She found a small niche, crept in, and deposited her eggs on the water.

I, and a couple of hundred of my new sibs, hatched and the tiny Moss "wriggler" emerged. The water was warmish so all this took little time.

Me, now a “wriggler”, lived in the water, fed and developed into the third stage of my life, called a pupa or a “tumbler.” I lived in the water but I didn’t feed. It was a miserable week in that dark place. No food. Nothing to drink.

But then on a bright and cheerful morning, I emerged. Straight onto the surface of the water. I was fully grown. An adult. I flexed my wings to make sure there were no glitches, flew a few circles and threw a couple of loops and I am ready for action.