Hate mosquitoes? Who doesn't? But maybe we shouldn't

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A blood-sucking nuisance, mosquitoes are responsible for spreading diseases to hundreds of millions of people every year. True?

Yes, says entomologist Lawrence Reeves, but it's also true that mosquitoes primarily feed on plant sugars, not blood. Only female mosquitoes consume blood, and only when they need it to complete their reproductive cycle. Also, it is possible some may serve as pollinators like bees, allowing plants to produce fruit, seeds, and more young plants.

The bottom line is that while mosquitoes have a bad rap, the truth is probably much more complex, given how diverse they are and how much we don't know about them.

"[Mosquitoes are] this rather nondescript, dark insect that's biting you and making you itch," said Reeves, an assistant professor at the Florida Medical Entomology Lab at the University of Florida, who spoke last week as part of the OEB Seminar Series, hosted by the graduate students at the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology. "In my lab, we're trying to visualize mosquitoes, both their morphology and interactions with other organisms."

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