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Sticker of Yellow fever mosquito
Bug card No. 1486 of 1,500

Yellow fever mosquito

Aedes aegypti
Name means: “the unpleasant one from Egypt”
Eats: BloodFlies and mosquitoesHouses and farms6 legs

The yellow fever mosquito is a small dark mosquito with white rings on its legs. On its back it has a white pattern shaped like a lyre, an old kind of harp. It first came from Africa and now lives in warm places all over the world.

Lives in
Warm parts of the world on almost every continent, first from Africa
Length
4 to 7 mm (0.16 to 0.28 in)
Top speed
about 2.4 km/h (1.5 mph)
Flying, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Dangerous: look, do not touch
What does it eat?
Only the female drinks blood, because she needs it to make her eggs. The male feeds on fruit juice.
For real!Photo of Yellow fever mosquito
Picture by Pedro Chagas. CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

Yellow fever mosquito about 7 mm long (0.28 in)A grain of rice about 6 mm (0.24 in)A toy building brick about 3.2 cm (1.3 in)
small enough to sit on your fingernailcould fly across a whole football pitch in 160 secondsmoves 95 times its own body length every second

How big is Yellow fever mosquito compared to YOU?

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How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

Its eggs can stay alive for more than a year when dry and hatch when water comes back.

2

The female finds people by smelling the air we breathe out and the smell of our skin.

3

Its eggs are white when they are laid and turn black soon after.

4

Its name means the unpleasant one from Egypt.

5

The females are bigger than the males.

you asked

Most asked questions about Yellow fever mosquito

?How long does a yellow fever mosquito live?

A grown-up lives two to four weeks, but its eggs can last more than a year.

?How big is a yellow fever mosquito?

About 4 to 7 millimetres long.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Aedes aegypti
Group
Flies and mosquitoes
Family
Culicidae
Classification
Insecta > Diptera > Culicidae
Lives on
Africa, North America, South America, Asia, Australia and Oceania

Where the facts come from

  1. Aedes aegypti (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 Pedro Chagas. CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.

If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at hello@bugwiki.app and we will fix it.

More from the same group: Flies and mosquitoes

Also at home here: Houses and farms