Check out our awesome range of animal facts for kids and learn some fun trivia about our friends in the animal kingdom.

Fun Mosquito Facts for Kids

Check out our fun mosquito facts for kids. Learn about how many species of mosquitoes there are, why they suck blood, how they can transmit diseases to humans and animals and much more. Read on and enjoy our interesting information about mosquitoes.

Mosquitoes from the Culicidae family, they are a midge-like fly.

The word "mosquito" is the Spanish and Portuguese word for "little fly".

There are over 3,500 known species of mosquitoes worldwide.

Most species of mosquito are considered to be a major nuisance and pest because they consume the blood of humans and animals.

Mosquitoes cause more deaths than any other animal in the world. They are carriers of diseases, including malaria, dengue fever, and yellow fever which can be transmitted to humans and animals when the mosquito feeds on blood.

Only the female mosquito feeds on blood and when they are not trying to produce eggs, females are happy to stick to eating nectar from plants like the male does.

When a female feeds on blood their abdomen expands and can hold up to 3 times its own body weight in blood.

Mosquitoes prefer O-type blood, people with high body heat, pregnant women and heavy breathers. Many of these reasons are because mosquitoes can sense carbon dioxide (CO2) from up to 100 feet away. Which is a reason why they circulate around our heads where we exhale CO2.

Females live for two weeks to a month while males usually live for just a week.

Like other flies, mosquitoes go through four lifecycles stages: egg, larva, pupa, and adult.

Female mosquitoes tend to lay their eggs in stagnant water, even very shallow puddles are suitable.

Some mosquito can fly for up to four hours continuously at 1 - 2 km/h (0.6 - 1 mph), they are however one of the slowest flying insects.

Mosquitoes can beat their wings between 450 and 600 times per second!

Fish, dragonfly and other aquatic insects are predators of mosquitoes.