h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I know wasps go 'zzzzz' and bees go 'zzzzz' but I've never heard a mosquito make a noise in all the many times I have been bitten.

They do a bit, yeah, but it's incredibly high pitched. You can only hear it near your ear.

And yes, this is usually approximately three seconds before they jab you one on the face.

Hmm... I'm not convinced...

Oh yes they emit a bizzzzzzz sound! And if you move your body (shaking all bones) at the moment that you hear it then the beast won't be further away than 100cm from where your head was. Within that range is where you should be looking if you want to see the blood of the beast.

I'll have to remember that.

When we went camping, our method of repeling mosquitos was to burn those green coil things. It didn't work, but it was good fun to watch the spiral burning slowly away.

The spirals DO work inside a room, though - using them is the ONLY way I ever got to sleep in India. By the way, if you never heard a mosquito despite being bitten often, you may havbe a hearing problem... It's less a bzzzzz than a whEEEEEEEEEEEnn!

indeed, like (what I imagine) a Kamikaze homing in on you as the (blood) carrier. With the slight difference that a mosquito doesn't really want to do Kamikaze, ie: being killed in the action.

It is like a tiny violin playing a particularly nasty and anoying tune, over, and over, and over. The noise is enough to drive any sane person crazy, and any crazy person deeper into that realm of darkness... Muahhahahaha....

I heard somewhere that only the males make the high-pitched noise and the females are silent. Also, the females are the only ones which bite, needing blood for some vital nutrients to help their eggs develop...

Might be just a rumour.

I knoe the thing about the females is true, but I am not sure the male thing makes sense. Often I have heard the noise and then been biten, and they don't really work together.

the latter is what I've also heard (only females bite). I can't confirm about the former, *who* can be heard.

There's an old saying: "If you think you're too small to be effective, try sleeping in the same room as a mosquito". Mosquitos make noise, alright, and after growing up in Papua New Guinea I can't get to sleep while one is floating around in my bedroom - they make a horrible whining sound - and I'm sure the females make the noise, too.

I can confirm that only females bite.

But I've stopped talking about mosquitos now...