Mosquitoes are one of my favorite venomous animals. These natural phlebotomists have efficient venoms which allow them to effortlessly violate our most precious tissue—our blood—while manipulating our immune system to remain under the radar. You can just imagine how hard that venom has to work to hide the invading mouthparts, which poke around in search of a suitable capillary, as this awesome video from KQED's Deep Look shows:
Mosquitoes don't just have a single, straw-like mouth that they insert to draw blood; instead, they have a set of needly-like parts called stylets encased in a sheath called the labium. The labium pushes up like a sleeve when the female mosquito plunges her stylets in (male mosquitoes don't bite—only the females do).
Two of the needle-like mouthparts, called maxillae, have saw-like teeth which allow her to cut through your skin to help the hunt for blood. Two others, called mandibles, keep ...
