Mosquitoes are small, midge-like flies, in fact the word "mosquito" is Spanish for "little fly".
Mosquitoes feed on the blood of various kinds of hosts, mainly vertebrates, mainly mammals. However, some mosquitoes also attack invertebrates, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and even some kinds of fish. Although the loss of blood is seldom of any importance to the victim, the saliva of the mosquito often causes a nasty irritation that we call a bite.
However, it can be much more serious. Many species of mosquitoes act as vectors of diseases. In passing from host to host, some transmit extremely harmful infections such as malaria, yellow fever, Chikungunya, West Nile virus, dengue fever, filariasis, Zika virus and other arboviruses, rendering it the deadliest animal family in the world.
Bubbly recently mentioned that dengue fever is a problem in her country, so following our post on the Zika virus we decided to show this infographic, which reveals some of the diseases that the mosquito carries.