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What animals eat mosquitoes?
What animals eat mosquitoes?
Mosquitoes are not fun to have on or around your property. They bite and can spread serious diseases through their bites. Since they bite humans and suck their blood for food, mosquitoes like to live close to humans.
The control and prevention of mosquito infestations should involve different measures. You could consider biological means such as natural predators. In this article, we highlight the predators of mosquitoes. We will be highlighting animals that mosquitoes make a major part of their diets and animals that eat insects, including mosquitoes, in general.
Little forest bat
Little forest bats inhabit the eucalypt forest in south-eastern Australia and mosquitoes are the main part of their diet. The little forest bat is a microbat that generally eats insects. The fact that the bats feed majorly on mosquitoes has been established by how their population changes with respect to the population of mosquitoes. They typically feed on mosquitoes as they catch them on their wings.
Other bat species, apart from the little forest bat, feed on mosquitoes and other insects. Insects are a major part of the diet of bats. They can eat up to 1,000 insects in an hour, and those insects could be mosquitoes. Even though other species eat mosquitoes, the little forest bat is most effective at decimating populations of the bloodsuckers.
Dragonflies
Dragonflies are otherwise called mosquito hawks because they feed on the insects. Adult and larval dragonflies can eat mosquitoes and help to control their populations. They feed on mosquitoes as well as other insects. Dragonflies apply their excellent flying and maneuvering skills in preying on insects such as bees and mosquitoes.
The larval dragonfly feeds mostly on the larvae of mosquitoes, helping to control their populations. An adult dragonfly can eat hundreds of mosquitoes in a day.
Spiders
Spiders feed on mosquitoes and could help in controlling their populations. It is noteworthy that, although spiders do not mind eating mosquitoes, they do not actively hunt them. If a mosquito is trapped in a spider web, the spider will definitely eat the mosquito. Yet, spiders do not actively hunt for mosquitoes. Thus, we could agree that spiders do not eat enough mosquitoes to be able to control their populations.
Frogs
In the US, three species of frogs actively feed on mosquitoes. They are the giant tree frog, the green tree frog, and the spadefoot toad. Although these three species actively hunt mosquitoes, other toads, frogs, and tadpoles can eat mosquitoes, but not enough to manage their population effectively.
Apart from being predators, frogs, tadpoles, and toads help to control the population of mosquitoes by competing with their larvae for sources of food.
Birds
A lot of birds can eat mosquitoes. They eat both the immature mosquitoes and adult mosquitoes. Some bird species have particularly been established as predators of mosquitoes. They include swallows, waterfowls, and purple martins. Migratory songbirds are also known predators of mosquitoes.
The predators of mosquitoes could be effectively applied to control their populations and manage infestations. They could particularly be applied in areas with a large population of mosquitoes to manage the population.
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