Here's a Video of a Mosquito's Mouth-Parts Probing Your Tender Flesh

By Lindy West  |  August 7, 2013 | 2:30am
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If you’ve always wondered exactly what it looks like, inside of your flesh, when a mosquito sticks its stabby, contaminated tube-mouth in there and sucks your blood, YOU’RE WELCOME. Here’s a video of it. Video of the mosquito probing around for a blood vessel (inside “a flap of mouse skin”) is above, and video of the mosquito striking gold is below.

Via National Geographic:

“I was genuinely amazed to see the footage,” says James Logan from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, who studies mosquitoes. “I had read that the mouthparts were mobile within the skin, but actually seeing it in real time was superb. What you assume to be a rigid structure, because it has to get into the skin like a needle, is actually flexible and fully controllable. The wonders of the insect body never cease to amaze me!”

GAAAAHHHHHH LOOK AT IT WIGGLIN’. Now that we’ve got that out of the way, can science figure out why mosquitos think my blood tastes like a heroin slurpee, but with other people they’re like “eh, NBD”? Because NOT FAIR. #humblebrag #imdelicious

 
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