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Sticker of White-dotted mosquito
Bug card No. 4752 of 4,939

White-dotted mosquito

Culex restuans
Eats: BloodFlies and mosquitoesPonds, rivers and shores6 legs

The white-dotted mosquito is a medium-sized brown mosquito from the Americas. Some of them have two little white dots on their back, which gave it its name. Its babies wiggle around in small puddles of still water.

Lives in
Canada, the United States, Mexico, Central America and the Bahamas, near still water
Top speed
about 2 km/h (1.2 mph)
Flying, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Dangerous: look, do not touch
Its bite can pass on germs that make people ill, like West Nile virus. Look, do not touch, and tell a grown-up if you get bitten a lot.
What does it eat?
The females drink blood, mostly from birds and only now and then from mammals. The babies in the water eat tiny bits floating around them.
For real!Photo of White-dotted mosquito
Picture by Katja Schulz. CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

The white dots on its back can rub off, and some never have them at all, so experts check other tiny hairs and scales to tell it apart.

2

Its babies are called wigglers because they swim by wiggling. They breathe through a little tube at the end of their body, like a snorkel.

3

The mother lays her eggs stuck together in a tiny raft that floats on the water.

4

Old car tyres full of rainwater are one of its favourite baby rooms.

5

A mother picks water with lots of food and no other wigglers in it, so her babies will not have to share.

you asked

Most asked questions about White-dotted mosquito

?How do I get rid of white-dotted mosquitoes?

Empty buckets, old tyres and other things that hold still water, because that is where the babies grow.

?How big is the white-dotted mosquito?

It is a medium-sized mosquito. Each wing is only about 4 millimetres long.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Culex restuans
Group
Flies and mosquitoes
Family
Culicidae
Classification
Insecta > Diptera > Culicidae
Lives on
North America

Where the facts come from

  1. Culex restuans (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
  2. Picture by Katja Schulz. CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.

If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.

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More from the same group: Flies and mosquitoes

Also at home here: Ponds, rivers and shores

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