When a mosquito looks at the average home in Florida it sees a wealth of opportunity! Carbon dioxide and heat seeping through the tiny cracks and crevices, under doors and perhaps out of open windows. This can only mean one thing to the female mosquito seeking blood for her eggs: Warm-blooded, living, breathing animals (US)!!

Now, decision time. Being a highly determined mosquito, if I do say so myself, shall I try to gain entrance to this home through a door, a hole in the screen or some other port of entry? This seems kind of risky; and is. If I do manage to get in and receive blood for my eggs, I still have to get out and wait for my eggs to develop and deposit them somewhere. The odds are kind of slim but if I am one of a few species of mosquitoes, I will do this and do it well.

Since that is so risky, I'll be a little more patient and safe. I will hang out under an eave, in a garage, under the leaves of shrubs or even in that nice, lush St. Augustine sod. If I'm really lucky this homeowner will have a sprinkler system and I can bask in the life giving moisture it provides. Now I'll rest and expend little energy until the mammals (US) emerge from their dwelling. When they do I'll quietly attempt to withdraw that life giving red liquid around which my life revolves: Blood!!!

Now that I have my blood meal, my mission in life is halfway complete. If I can survive for a few more days my eggs will be ready to deposit. Normally, I might have to travel a little to do this but not this time. The fine, upstanding mammals that live here have provided me with many spots to deposit my eggs. If I could talk I would thank them over and over! I don't have to travel far risking life and limb avoiding birds, lizards, dragonflies and other hazards, I can hang out for a while, make myself strong and when the time is right deposit those amazing eggs!

When I flew on in here the other day I noticed, out of the corner of my compound eye, a beautiful, black, round, car tire without a rim. A perfect water and debris collector. My beautiful eggs would go perfectly in there. Its dry inside the tire at the moment but that doesn't matter. I'll place my eggs on the inside of the tire and when it rains...... cha-ching....a perfect place for my hundred or so larvae to live and eat for six or seven days until they fly away (I'm so proud). I'll be even prouder if my offspring hang around this same house and receive their blood meal from the exact same mammal that I did. Chips off the old block!! My good friend "Pierce", said she was heading straight for the abandoned swimming pool in the back yard. She likes to lay her eggs on standing water. If she doesn't detect the presence of chemicals or minnows there she should do OK. She was hatched there like her mother before her, and her mother before her, and....well you get the idea.

My other friend "Spike" is a bit more of a muckety muck. She will only put her eggs in places with lots of leaves and debris. She once confided to me that her favorite place to deposit eggs was in someone's rain gutter. Clogged gutters are perfect! No minnows to eat the larvae; plenty of food from the debris; besides, when was the last time anyone saw the mammals clean the gutters?

I guess me and all my friends do pretty well thanks to the humans. They love water!! Rain barrels, tires, gutters, bird baths, cisterns, tree holes, bromeliads, you name it. If it holds water for longer than five days and doesn't have fish swimming in it; we'll use it gladly! We love Florida!