Dr. Wu's Mosquito Trap by Dr. Wu Tao-Wei The most dangerous animal on earth is the mosquito. It spreads a variety of diseases that have killed more people than all of the wars of Mankind combined. Such diseases as the West Nile virus are spread through the ichy bites of these little flying monsters. To control this pest requires a knowledge of mosquito behavior and habits. You do not need to be an expert in entymology to be able to out-wit these creatures. Certainly a Man is smarter than a mosquito, so let's look at the life-style of the average mosquito and find its weak points. Most, but not all, mosquitos hunt at night and they try to find dark and cool places to hide during the daylight hours. So, to keep them out of your house, you obviously need screen doors and windows PLUS the knowledge of their habits. They get into your house during the dawn to midday hours just as you are opening the house up to go to work and doing your house work. So, to outsmart them you need to open all of your doors and windows AT DUSK, during the times when they are starting to fly out into the night. Open the doors and windows at dusk and stand outside for a little bit. You will see them flying out in search of your blood. They find their victims through a sense of smell and the ability to see infra-red emmissions of warm-blooded animals. With no one in the house, and the sun setting, they have no reason to remain indoors. After about a half hour, go back indoors and close your screen doors and windows, leaving the mosquitos wandering around looking for you outside. You will be safe indoors for the rest of the night. However, if you don't escape, then after biting you and sucking some of your blood, the female mosquito then has the food she needs to produce eggs. These eggs she wants to lay into some standing water. But not just ANY standing water. She flys over various water bodies such as tin cans, boles of trees, rain water-filled tires, open buckets, drain ditches and ponds. What her compound beady eyes are looking for in these places, is a water body swarming with microscopic animal life. Swimming, one-celled animals are the food that her wiggling little larva eat. When she finds such a place, she lays her eggs. After some little time, the larva hatch and wiggle about while eatting the one-celled animals. Once these wigglers reach a certain size and maturity, they crawl up to the surface and metamorphise into an adult blood-sucker ready to fly into your life (and maybe bring about your death) once again. The trap that I use around my house is nothing more than many containers of water. I keep these filled with water in sunny locations so that they grow lots of moss and microbes. I provide good places for the mosquitos to lay their eggs. I WANT them to lay their eggs in my little larva nurseries. And I rotate the times that I fill these nurseries with water so that I always have both fresh and stale water available for use. When the wigglers hatch, I keep an eye on their size because I want their containers to attract as many egg-laying mosquitos as possible before I dump them out on the ground. But of course, I don't want them to actually grow to the size where they turn into adults and come looking for me! It gives me a feeling of satisfaction to see a container of wigglers in my power. While scratching the ichy bites on my neck and hands, I gloat and chuckle as I pour them onto the dry ground to their doom. Now, if you share this method with your neighbors, the size of the local mosquito hatch can be drastically reduced. By keeping all of the local open containers of water dumped out and only keeping the containers full that you are monitoring, the mosquitos will lay their eggs in your own, private traps. If entire neighborhoods practice this method, the local mosquito population will dwindle. Yes, they will still bite, but each year there will be fewer and fewer of these little blood-sucking monsters. ----------------------------------------------------------- Second Publication Rights Granted as long as the following is credited: First Published in the Chinese Swaztika Newsletter, for free subscription send blank eMail to: