Keep Your Eyes Peeled For These Mosquito Control Eaters

Mother nature, much like the team at Mosquito Enemy, has always had an all-star lineup when it comes to mosquito control fighting technicians. From birds like Purple Martins to bats, dragonflies, spiders, fish, and frogs, the natural mosquito hunting team can often be found right in your backyard. So, who are the predators?

•  Bats: The first of the mosquito hunters are bats. While bats are one of the most renowned eaters of mosquitoes, they are far more effective at locating, catching and eating other insects.

• Birds: Avians are one of humanities best friends when it comes to consuming mosquitoes. Purple Martins, swallows, and waterfowl (like geese, terns, ducks) stand at the apex of winged mosquito eaters. Even more so, many birds are known to eat both the adult and aquatic stages of mosquitoes.

• Fish: For those who didn’t know, fish are actually big mosquito eaters! There are many types of fish that feed on mosquitos, especially the mosquito larvae. Some of the big eaters include guppies, bass, bluegill and catfish. But, the leader of the predatory fish has to be the Gambusia Affinis, which is commonly known as the mosquito fish.

• Frogs: Though mosquitoes do not often make up a large part of their diet, frogs and tadpoles do help eat away at mosquito populations. Not many species of frogs are known for eating many mosquitoes as tadpoles, generally preferring to feed on small, suspended particles of plant-related materials instead.

• Dragonflies: Though harmless crane flies often called “mosquito hawks,” that name truly belongs to dragonflies. Though they do eat mosquitoes, Dragonflies often do not eat enough to put large dents within the wild mosquito populations. Even so, during the dragonflies’ aquatic stage a large bulk of their food consists of mosquito larvae.

• Predacious Mosquitoes: An amazing fact about mosquitoes is that some species will actually prey on other mosquitoes. The genus Toxorhynchites, or “elephant mosquito” is the most well known of the predatory mosquito species. This certain species of mosquito have larvae which are predacious on other mosquito larvae all the while adults are not known to transmit disease. They also do not consume blood!

• Spiders: Spiders are one of the many of the opportunistic predators of mosquitoes. Spiders only truly become mosquito predators when a mosquito inadvertently flies into its web.

Here’s a fun activity: next time you go outside, either alone or with company, try and make a game out of finding as many members of Mother Nature’s mosquito eaters as possible!

When it comes to chowing down on mosquitoes some of these predators can consume enough to noticeably reduce the population in an area, while others eat so few that you can barely tell a difference. Each one of these predators do make welcomed contributions to fighting mosquitoes.