1.   Blood, whether from people or rats or birds, is needed by female mosquitoes to lay eggs.

2.   A female mosquito sucks her dinner out of a malaria patient recuperating in bed.

3.   After biting humans, female mosquitoes use the blood they suck to produce hundreds of eggs.

4.   All are transmitted by female mosquitoes simply following their mothering instincts.

5.   Despite prodigious egg-laying talents, female mosquitoes mate only once, storing a lifetime of sperm in an abdominal sac called a spermatheca.

6.   Did you know, for example, that only female mosquitoes bite?

7.   Female mosquitoes require a blood meal before they can lay a batch of eggs.

8.   For some interesting but less practical trivia, we learned that only female mosquitos suck human blood and males are only good for procreation.

9.   Given a choice, female mosquitoes prefer their blood to ours.

10.   Infected female mosquitoes can transmit St. Louis encephalitis virus, a potential cause of inflammation of the brain and spinal cord.