Reporting Dr. Maria Simbra For more trusted health news and
information, visit CBS Pittsburgh's PITTSBURGH (KDKA) – Summer
means time outdoors, and time outdoors can be shared with
mosquitoes. How much do you know about these pesky pests? Did
you know only the females bite? “They do require a blood meal to
generate eggs,” Bill Todaro, an emtomologist at the Allegheny
County Health Department said. “Male mosquitoes are only
interested in sex.” Some mosquitoes prefer humans, some prefer
other animals like birds. Mosquitoes can suck a lot, and
quickly. “It only takes them about 30 seconds, but they very
quickly have a mouth part that’s adapted to, they chew right
down and find a capillary, pop into it, and within 30 seconds
they just fill up with blood, two or three times their own
weight, and fly off,” Todaro said. Whether you get bitten has a
lot to do with your personal chemistry. “Carbon dioxide mostly
out of your breath, and out of your skin, octonol, other
hormones that emerge from our skin,” Todaro said r