Book Title: Trigger Issues - Mosquito
Author: Richard Swift

In my urbanized city state, mosquitoes are considered far less intimidating compared to array of diseases they could possibly carry, specifically the widely publicized dengue fever.

These seemingly innocent bites have always been considered as a major form of minor irritations while sitting around in the open. Stealthy in nature, mosquito attacks are almost undetectable in the dark, of course unless they attack in swarms. These tiny creatures have been around for much longer us, surviving what could have killed the dinosaurs.

Master of adaptation, mosquitoes possess the ability to breed in much tougher conditions than we would have expected. Be it high altitudes, winter times (mosquitoes go hibernating mode) or even Afar Depression temperatures. The package comes complete with the talent for developing immunity to environment threats such as DDT.

DDT (dichlorodiphenyl trichloroethane) is a pesticide discovered in 1939, mass produced to control the population of mosquitoes. Initial results to the war against mosquitoes were promising, until DDT resistant mosquitoes were discovered in India in 1959.

I should have realized this long time ago, from the very fact that only members of the female gender drains blood and life out of me. It should NOT have been a surprise that only female mosquitoes take my precious, awfully sweet blood. In the name of love, you suck me dry only to grow your offspring. Couldn’t you have been smarter, teaching your kids to fend for themselves like the Toxorhynchites?

Toxorhynchites is a species of mosquito that do not suck blood to act as protein for their young. Instead, Toxorhynchites larvae feed on other mosquito larvae as a source for food.

Dengue and malaria has gained international recognition over the years, while you little insect remained a source of complaint for teenage girls in their short skirts, high heels and thick makeup.

I fear you, not for the thought of buzzing teenage whining in my ears, but for the possibility of other viruses you could learn to carry. Afterall, you were a major biological weapon used by the Germans in 1944, wounding more than 55,000 within a year.