There is a certain irony in using drones to fight the creature with the planet's most annoying buzz, but that is exactly what Adelaide scientist Dr Ken Clarke is doing.

"Drones have great potential in the fight against mosquitoes," Dr Clarke said.

"It's cheaper, it's faster. It allows for easier access to otherwise difficult terrain.

"A lot of mosquito breeding habitat is in salt marshes or wetlands and they typically require hours of walking through or in some cases amphibious vehicles to check out all the little pools."

The mosquito drone program is part of the University of Adelaide's unmanned vehicle research facility.

In the great tradition of research, the idea to use drones was Dr Clarke's, but he happily admits his honours student Tasya Sarira has done much of the leg work.

"I haven't minded at all, it's been a great opportunity," Ms Sarira said.

"Mosquitoes are a public health risk, they are a nuisance and economically they are not good for a country or its people."

Dr Clarke said when their development work was finished, drones would not just be used to find mozzies, they will destroy them.

"There's three phases to mosquito control and detection firstly is finding pools that might support the mosquitoes," he said.

"The next is checking those pools and then the final phase is finding ways of dispensing larvicide to each of those pools containing wrigglers.

"Larvicide comes in little tiny brickettes or tiny pellets, and one of these drones can carry several of those brickettes at a time."

Mozzie numbers set to spike after rain

Another scientist who is delighted with drones is Dr Phil Weinstein.

"You have to be in awe of their evolutionary history, I mean these [mosquitoes] were things that were biting the dinosaurs and they are largely unchanged," he said.

"They also bring in the research dollars, so I don't mind them in that sense, but like everyone else, I'll squish them with relish at a barbecue!"

Dr Phil Weinstein says more mosquitoes do not necessarily mean there will be a disease outbreak. ( ABC News: Simon Royal )

Dr Weinstein said South Australians could expect to see more of the obnoxious insects after the recent floods.

"After any major rainfall event you always get a spike in mosquito numbers, so yes, we are virtually guaranteed much higher numbers of mosquitoes in the coming months," he said.

The major mosquito-borne diseases in Australia are Ross River virus and the much rarer, though potentially fatal, Murray Valley encephalitis.

But just because there will be more mosquitoes, does not necessarily mean there will be a disease outbreak.

"You need a population of host animals, somewhere for the virus to live," Dr Weinstein said.

"In the case of Ross River, it's kangaroos and wallabies and other macropods ... for Murray Valley encephalitis, it's migratory birds."

The female mosquito then has to bite the host, incubate the virus, and live long enough to get hungry again and bite something else.

"When she's ready for another blood meal the virus can then be transmitted to the next warm-blooded thing she takes blood from and if that's a human you have a disease transmission risk."

Mosquitoes 'the size of pterodactyls'

Dr Weinstein said mosquitoes this season were large.

We showed the expert footage of a mosquito biting ABC cameraman, Simon Goodes.

The battle against mosquitoes has not been won. ( ABC News: Simon Royal )

"Look at the size of that thing," Dr Weinstein said. "It's like a pterodactyl!"

While the mozzie, which was squashed, provided momentary discomfort for the cameraman, throughout history, the insects have been the architects of human misery, disease and death.

It is why innovations like the drone program are important.

"We haven't won the battle against them," Dr Weinstein said.

"We've knocked malaria on the head in Australia, but these things are evolving ... the number of emerging infectious diseases that are mosquito-borne like Zika, Chikungunya, West Nile virus ... what we need are new original management techniques and drones are a part of that."