Mosquito Trap

Have you been annoyed by mosquitoes? Besides that, mosquitoes can infect you with many kind of diseases. One of them is malaria. For detailed information about mosquito and its diseases, you may visit this site http://www.comosquitocontrol.com/Mosquito_Biology.html

Here is a good short article about this biting insects:

Only the females bite!
Only the female mosquito bites. Male mosquitoes feed primarily on flower nectar, whereas female mosquitoes require a blood meal to provide protein for their eggs. Typically, they consume more than their own body weight in blood. Different species of mosquito prefer to feed at different times of the day or night.

Midges and sandflies, as well as mosquitoes, locate you by sight, smell and by sensing the heat radiating from your body. As well as being able to see you with their large compound eyes, they can smell the carbon dioxide you exhale and the lactic acid in your perspiration. What's more, they detect movement by infra-red radiation. This ability to sense you in three different ways means that mosquitoes can find you from up to 36 metres (120') away.

Methods of mosquito and midge control
The key to mosquito control is adulticiding the pests. This simply means killing the adult insects so that they don't have the opportunity to breed. Your local council helps to do this by using larvicides. Larvicides are simply chemicals that kill an insect's eggs or larvae. This might be effective in the short term, but it fails to eradicate an insect population in the long term. The Mostrap Mosquito Trap breaks the breeding cycle of these insects by eradicating the adult females before they have a chance to lay their eggs. The Mostrap Mosquito Trap not only controls the local insect population but also prevents new populations from establishing. Typically, most mosquitoes and other biting insects do not migrate. 90% live and feed within 100 metres (300') from where they breed (swamp mosquitoes are an exception) and the other 10% are blown in from neighbouring areas by the wind. By attracting and eradicating these renegade mosquitoes, the Mostrap Mosquito Trap prevents new populations establishing. Mosquitoes produce up to 3000 offspring during their six-week lifecycle, so for every mosquito killed it prevents 3000 offspring being born.

Biting insect fact: Carbon dioxide
In recent years, scientists have established that blood-sucking insects are attracted to their blood meal by the smell of carbon dioxide. That is, the exhaled breath of humans and animals. But while they are attracted by short bursts of carbon dioxide, continuously released carbon dioxide has the opposite effect. Carbon dioxide released mainly from the breath but also from the skin serve as a long-range airborne attractant and can be detected by biting insects at distances of up to 36 metres (120').

Biting insect fact: Lactic acid
Lactic acid is produced as a result of vertebrate muscle metabolism, and is released through human and animal perspiration. Mosquitoes have chemoreceptors on their antennae that are stimulated by the scent of acid. And, although humans are unable to smell it, blood-sucking insects find it irresistible.

Biting insect fact: Octenol
Octenol, described as 'cow's breath in a can', has been found to be a remarkable lure for mosquitoes. The discovery was made by accident by scientists in South Africa studying the Tsetse fly. It was later confirmed when a mosquito outbreak in Florida USA was killing cattle. It was found that the lungs of the cattle were filled with mosquitoes, they were inhaling more mosquitoes than air!

Biting insect fact: Heat & Moisture
At close range, skin temperature and moisture serve as attractants. It has been known for many years that females of many species of mosquitoes will be attracted to a source of heat via infra-red radiation, in particular warm moisture

Biting insect fact: Spectrum & Ultraviolet light
Adult insects possess both compound eyes and ocelli. Compound eyes are used for navigation and sensing movement, patterns, contrast and colour, while ocelli are believed to sense light levels. Research has found that the retina of the compound eye in differing species of flying insects is sensitive to differing wavelengths of light.

Biting insect fact: Color
Mosquitoes are attracted to dark colors.

There are many kinds of methods for avoiding and terminating this sucking-blood insects such as:

1. Mosquito Repellant Incense Coil
2. Mosquito Aerosol
3. Mosquito Repellant Electric
4. Mosquito Repellant Liquid for Skin
5. Mosquito Repellant Ultrasonic
6. Mosquito Electric Swatter
7. Mosquito Electric Killer
8. Mosquito Trap

I try to find a method of eliminating mosquitoes around my house without using any chemicals effectively. At last I found and selected the latest method, ie: using mosquito trap. I try 2 different brand which are used a similar method though a little bit different in just one piece of extra part that will be explained below. According to the supplier, the first one is made in Korea with a brand name "Black Hole" priced around Rp 550,000 and the second one is made in China with a brand name "Venus" priced around Rp 275,000. But I guess the first one is also from China :-) with doubled price. There is an extra part in the first brand Black Hole, a kind of conical screen made from plastic. This conical plastic screen is to retain trapped mosquitos from escaping the container whenever you turn off the fan. Some of the mosquitoes are killed by the rotating blades of the fan. But most of them are still surviving and trap into the bottom chamber of the container. Be careful not to turn off the fan, because they will fly off escaping the trap as soon as the fan stops. Black Hole has better capability of retaining those strong mosquitoes from escaping due to the extra conical plastic screen.

So how the mosquitos will die if they still survive from the blades of the fan. I do not know exactly but they might be dead after sometimes because of the heat and radiation of 2 small ultraviolet lamps at the upper chamber of the container. One UV lamps only consume around 10W so that the total power consumed by this device are around 30W. You can easily exchange the dead lamp with a new one by opening the lower chamber and reach for the lamp at the upper side. It cost you around Rp 30,000 for each piece of new UV Lamp.

You must maintain this mosquito trap at least once a week depending on how many it traps and kills mosquitoes. The supplier provides you with a small brush to clean out all the dead mosquitoes inside the lower chamber. Before opening up the lower chamber, I usually prepare with a sheet of tissue. Place the tissue from the top of opened lower chamber to prevent remaining strong mosquitos from escaping and then pressing it down to kill them all instantly. Furthermore, you must prepare yourself with very bad smells of the corpses. Once I heard it can also make you sick because they emits diseases.

The most important thing is how to place your trap appropriately in order to catch mosquitoes effectively. You should place it around a rather dark place without windy air. Usually I put it on a small stall or open chair with more or less 1 meter high from the ground. The mosquitoes like dark places and they will flying around the trap due to the attractive UV light and suction of the propelling fan. The brochure inside the product box says that the trap uses a kind of material TiO2 that reacts with UV lights to produce CO2 to attract mosquitoes. But in fact I cannot find such a material inside it. Maybe I miss it or don't know this kind of material at all :-)

Good luck for catching more mosquitoes then!