Can Mozzies get drunk?

[Gsxrnz]

I'm sitting on a barstool in my local when one of the girls walks over and picks something up off the floor beside me. She places a tissue on the bar and then places something miniscule on the tissue. It was a mosquito. She says "I see him bit you, then him fall to floor. Him drunk!".

I'd been drinking JD for a few hours and the tank was reasonably full - a walk to the toilet had to be planned in advance.

The Mozzie was lying on its back, legs waving about a bit. I can only assume it ate my blood and was overcome by the alcohol content. I would never have thought it was possible - anybody else had this experience?

. It was about then that I felt the post-bite tingling on my ankle, so I flattened the little bastard with my glass. Big red splotch on the tissue. R.I.P Mozzie.

[mopar71]

If it were possible, I don't think there would be many mozzies left in Thailand...at least not any that could fly straight.

[rookball]

do you have high blood pressure? mozzies can die if their gut filled up too quick caused by abnormal high blood pressure

[Gsxrnz]

No, haven't got high blood pressure. Been doing some research and it appears that my assumption is mostly wrong. It is possible to get a mosquito drunk from biting you, but you would to have such a high concentration of alcohol in your blood that you'd be dead. Bang goes that theory. Maybe my mozzie was just having a pre-take off rest after gorging on my blood.

I also discovered that only the female mosquito bites - that figures!

And it would take 1.2 million bites drain your body of blood - that's entirely feasible in my back yard at the moment, buggers are everywhere.

[evadgib]

....wasps in Zummerzett get the hump after a pitt-stop @ a cider press:)

[misterphil]

If a mosquito bites me it won't get drunk, it will die from alcohol poisoning.

[Chittychangchang]

RIP + 1

[h90]

it is a "her" not a "him" only the female mozzies bite

[partington]

do you have high blood pressure? mozzies can die if their gut filled up too quick caused by abnormal high blood pressure

Bar-room myth I'm afraid. Mosquitoes suck your blood actively, using a two pump system in their heads to achieve a really fast uptake to minimise the time taken to feed- they do not rely on blood pressure!

In any case, blood pressure refers to pressure against the walls of your arteries, the large sized major vessels, as your heart pumps, not to the minimal pressure in the tiny capillaries near the skin that mosquitoes feed from. If you have high blood pressure and prick your finger with a needle blood doesn't squirt out!

Edited July 25, 2013 by partington