This insect makes very few friends. In fact, when the first mosquito begins singing in your ear and the first bite is felt, you know you're in for a long few months. The ways in which they find you: chemical, visual and heat sensors.

The complete life-cycle of a mosquito takes about a month, although the exact length of the life cycle is dependent on water temperature. After drinking blood, adult females lay a raft of 40 to 400 tiny white eggs in standing water or very slow-moving water. Within a week, the eggs hatch into larvae (sometimes called wrigglers) that breathe air through tubes which they poke above the surface of the water. Larvae eat bits of floating organic matter and each other. Larvae molt four times as they grow; after the fourth molt, they are called pupae (also called tumblers). Pupae also live near the surface of the water, breathing through two horn-like tubes (called siphons) on their back. Pupae do not eat. An adult emerges from a pupa when the skin splits after a few days. The adult lives for only a few weeks - even less if you happen to swat one.

Of course, we aren't the first people to have to tolerate these critters. Mosquitoes have been around for
30 million years.