Mosquitos seem to be a shared international battle that every person has had to deal with at some point in their life. A recent study conducted by scientists at the the Netherland's Wageningen University and The University of California, Berkeley aimed to get a closer look at the behavior of these mosquitoes using very slow motion footage. The results of the research could be used in managing and preventing vector borne diseases in the future.
The footage revealed that the Anopheles coluzzii, a type of mosquitoes that can carry malaria in the wild but were sterile during this research, prepare to fly by flapping their wings 600 times a second, then softly pushing themselves off any surface when ready to be in the air. That makes them very subtle and unnoticeable for a human, which is why mosquitos are so hard to catch. Sofia W. Chang told Berkeley News. "That is something that might be unique to mosquitoes, and maybe even unique to blood feeders." This behavior was found to be very contrasting to the way fruit flies takeoff. Fruit flies jump first, then frantically flap their wings around in a way that makes it very easy for a human to locate them.
Scientist are hoping to further investigate this new information and apply it to more specimens of mosquitoes such as Aedes aegypti, which carries the Zika virus, and Culex mosquitoes, which can carry the West Nile virus. Learning about the flight dynamics of these mosquitoes can aid in combating their uncontrolled spread throughout the world, and especially during these past hurricane seasons.