The Mosquito   Only the female mosquito bites and takes the blood of warm-blooded animals. She does not really feed on blood. Scientists have found that she needs part of the blood to help more of her eggs to hatch. If the female mosquito takes warm blood, almost all of her eggs will hatch. If she does not take blood, most will not hatch. She does not really bite either. She puts her sharp tube through the skin and takes blood out by first pumping her saliva into the wound. Most people are allergic to mosquito saliva. This allergic reaction to the saliva causes a bump to grow where the female mosquito took blood. The male mosquito lives by taking plant juices from water plants and other soft land plants. He never takes blood. For mosquitoes to survive the winter, mating takes place in the fall. After mating, the male dies and the female must find a warm place to survive the cold winter months. The female often finds shelter in the warm cracks of buildings such as barns. There are also thousands of sheltered natural winter sites in forests and fields. In the early spring, the female lays eggs in the water. The clusters of eggs look like little black rafts and are about 6 mm wide. Each raft contains from 50 to 400 eggs, depending partly on how much blood the female took. The female is able to produce a larger quantity of eggs if she had a good feeding of blood from a warm blooded mammal such as a squirrel. If the female doesn't get blood she is still able to produce eggs, but the eggs will be smaller and have less chance of survival. Throughout the warmer seasons, female mosquitoes continue to mate, take their blood meals and produce rafts of eggs. The mosquito problem is worst in the spring when there are fewer enemies eating the mosquitoes and more pools of water available to lay the eggs. The eggs hatch into a larval stage when the temperature reaches at least 3 degrees Celsius. The larvae are tiny and must molt five times before reaching the adult stage of life. The larvae hang upside down on the underside of the water surface. The tail of the larvae have feather like structures which allow it to hang onto the surface using the water surface tension. The mosquito larvae have an interesting way of breathing. They have a breathing tube which reaches from the tail to the pond surface. This tube is used in much the same way humans use a snorkel to breath while remaining underwater.