As you sit in silence perusing the sorry state of the political scene, you are suddenly struck by a familiar sting.
Can it be? It cannot be. This is the middle of winter, our reprieve from the pesky stings and bites on arms, legs, or any exposed skin. But alas it is here…the beast of summer. Once again, hail to the mighty mosquito for its power of disruption. No wonder they call it “the world’s deadliest animal in the world”.
You may discount the male mosquito for now. It is the female of the species that is an indomitable powerhouse that keeps half the universe sleepless at nights — days too.
She strides the earth unhindered, “Like a Colossus/ and we petty men/ Walk under his huge legs,” to recall Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, but “men at some time” are not “masters of their fates”. So far, the world has been unable to eliminate or effectively check the deadly monster, killing more humans throughout history than wars and all other animals combined.
She survives, resists and prospers — unheeded, unhindered, and undeterred.
A biological master of stealth, the female mosquito is designed to take your blood without you feeling it.
While she does not kill through physical strength like most war criminals, the female mosquito kills softly, silently, calmly in a peaceful manner, with more strategic wisdom “than all the costly weapons of war”.
A diminutive, lowly insect, weighing less than a grape, the mosquito has been overlooked by most men, while it has been perfecting its hunt for over 200 million years. Slowly but surely, it has created an unexpected architect of human destruction for all mankind.
Only a blood-feeding female would dare to kill indiscriminately and without fail, more than 720,000 to one million deaths annually — more than snakes, crocodiles, lions, and sharks combined.
Humans kill each other — approximately 400,000 to 475,000 deaths annually — through violence, murder and war. Mosquitoes are responsible for nearly double the number of human deaths.
Throughout history it is estimated that mosquitoes have been responsible for the deaths of nearly half of all humans who have ever lived — 50 billion out of 108 billion.
The general consensus as of 2026 maintains that mosquitoes are the deadliest animals on earth.
A question often raised is why not kill the killer? Why not cut the cost of treating its many diseases, thus save human lives? Scientists hesitate and vacillate. Meanwhile, the sneaky little female keeps biting, at will, oblivion of the killing fields of humanity throughout the ages.
Her only purpose is to produce her eggs and preserve her little ones. To do that, she needs blood, human and animal blood, rich with its iron and protein to nourish their eggs. She acts like a flying syringe, unaware of her ability to transmit parasites and viruses of its many diseases, like malaria, dengue, West Nile virus, Zika, chikungunya, and yellow fever. Malaria alone kills 600,000 victims per year.
The story of mosquitoes is one of resilience and survival. They are found everywhere on the planet except for Antarctica and they thrive wherever they are found. With all our advanced technology, we cannot eliminate a tiny mosquito. Quite the contrary, our mobile, progressive lifestyle has aided that little pest to spread and travel and prosper, breeding havoc and destruction wherever she is found. That seductive little creature gets a free ride to new places, bringing infections of epidemic proportions.
During prehistoric times, the mosquito was already a nuisance for millions of years. Fossil evidence suggests they have been around for 46 to 100 million years — humming, buzzing, flying, biting, hurting, stabbing, sucking, and infesting humans.
When she bit you in freezing weather, how did she do it? She should be in hibernation when the weather is below 10 degrees Celsius.
It must have been an unexpected warm spell that mistakenly awoke the beast, ready to hunt for your blood. Unaware of her soft persistent hum, she tracks you from 30 metres away by detecting the carbon dioxide you exhale; she gets closer; she uses her thermal sensors, finds the warmest spot on your skin, and she strikes. Not with one needle, but six (proboscis) a complex needle-system that saws through skin with such precision that it is rarely felt. Before you realise, she vanishes in the night.
Such resilient survivors, they are still here today, to plague the modern world, with this nasty method of killing humans, faster than our war criminals and their neighbours.
It was only at the end of the 19th century when “the world’s deadliest creatures” were revealed.
Sir Ronald Ross discovered the malaria parasite in the stomach of an Anopheles mosquito on 20 August 1897. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for his work in 1902.
This day is commemorated annually as World Mosquito Day.
We still have mosquitoes, they still have diseases, and they still kill. Do we celebrate or lament on 20 August 2026?
“One mosquito takes on a personality — a hatefulness, a struggle to the death.”
F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940)
* A version of this article appears in print in the 29 January, 2026 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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