A flying vampire in New Orleans, LA.

As we approach mosquito season, I find it’s important to look back into history and examine how these tiny midge-like flies earned themselves a spot on the stage as the world’s most revered and hated critters of all time.

For starters.. They consume mammal blood. Everything throughout history that we have learned does this is labeled as evil or believed to be sent from satan himself. Although these little demons are mostly impartial about where they draw their meals from, also feasting on fish, invertebrates, birds, and amphibians, the fact that most of their diet consists of mammal blood puts them on the highly undesirable list.

If you walk through the old iconic cemeteries of New Orleans, you may see a strange pattern, a recurring date….1853, a year that will forever live in infamy. This is the year that a confirmed 7,849 people died from the Yellow Fever in New Orleans alone, the single highest annual count as a result of the world-wide epidemic. As the symptoms became easier to identify and the treatment became more readily understood, Yellow Fever slowly phased out. Still, between 1815 and 1905, 41,000 people died in New Orleans from the plague spread by these nearly microscopic flies.

We don’t have much issue with the mosquitos on tours, they usually come out during sunset and by that time, we are usually off the water. So don’t worry about battling these guys as you join us on a kayak swamp tour. So as an ode to the returning mosquito, I give you the story of their story. Everybody get your Deet ready and let’s show these bugs whos boss.