Mosquitoes

[محمد ارسلان]

 

[محمد ارسلان]

Mosquitoes

One of the Signs of Allah, the Exalted, that points to His Greatness is the Verse in which He says:
“Verily, Allah is not ashamed to set forth a parable even of a mosquito or so much more when it is bigger (or less when it is smaller) than it. And as for those who believe, they know that it is the Truth from their Lord, but as for those who disbelieve, they say: ‘What did Allah intend by this parable?’ By it He misleads many, and many He guides thereby. And He misleads thereby only those who are Fasiqoon (the rebellious, disobedient to Allah).” (Soorah Al-Baqarah, 2:26)
If a mosquito landed on your arm, you would kill it and not feel a thing; it would be as if nothing happened, because you regard it as insignificant. Even the Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah upon him, said: “If this world were equivalent before Allah to a mosquito’s wing, He would not allow a disbeliever to have a drink of water.” (At-Tirmithi)
Would you believe that a mosquito has radar equipment? In the darkness of the night it makes straight for the man who is sleeping in his bed, without missing its target. The mosquito has the ability to detect the temperature of living beings by means of color, and has no need to rely on the rays of the sun or any other kind of light. The mosquito is able to detect differences in body temperature to 1/1000th of a degree.
• The mosquito has about one hundred eyes which are located on the head in a shape like a honeycomb. The mosquito’s eye receives these signals and transmits them to the brain.
• When the mosquito sucks blood, it uses an amazing mechanical method. The complex system that it uses is as follows: when it lands on its target, it chooses a spot using its lips that are found on its proboscis. The mosquito has a needle wrapped in a sheath that it brings out when it sucks blood.
The skin is not pierced by this needle as is often imagined. Rather there is something else that does this action, which is the upper jaw that is like a knife, and the lower jaw that has teeth which lean inward. The lower jaw acts like a saw, i.e., it moves like a saw and pierces the skin with the help of the upper jaw which acts like a knife. Then the needle is inserted into the hole and reaches the vein from which it sucks blood.
As is well-known, when the human body bleeds, the blood makes clots within a short period of time, due to the action of enzymes in the body. These enzymes pose a big problem for the mosquito because they close up the opening it has made very quickly, which means that it will not be able to suck blood. But in fact the mosquito does not face this problem because it manufactures a substance in its body which it excretes into the human’s vein to prevent the blood from congealing, and thus it is able to finish sucking blood. When the mosquito bites a person, the spot swells up and begins to itch; the reason for that is this enzyme which it excretes to prevent the blood from congealing.
• Would you believe that the mosquito has a mechanism to taste blood? It may like the blood of one person, but not that of another, so it focuses on the former and leaves the latter alone.
• Would you believe that the mosquito produces an anaesthetic? If it landed on your skin and you felt a sharp sensation when it dipped its proboscis into your skin, you would kill it before it sucked any of your blood. Due to the anaesthetic it injects, it can suck as much of your blood as it wants to.
• It is a common misconception that the mosquitoes are insects that suck blood and live only on blood. This is not correct, because it is only the female that sucks blood.
Moreover, the female mosquito does not suck blood in order to live on it, because the main food of mosquitoes is the nectar of flowers. The only reason for this difference between the male and female (which sucks blood) is that the female carries the eggs, and these eggs need protein in order to grow. In other words, we could say that she is protecting her progeny in this way.
• When the mosquito flies, we can hear it buzzing. This buzzing means that it is beating its wings four thousand times per second, and it has three hearts: a central heart and a heart for each wing. On its feet are hooks and claws, and when it lands on a rough surface, it uses the claws, and when it lands on a smooth surface it uses the hooks. Allah, Most High, says:
“Verily, Allah is not ashamed to set forth a parable even of a mosquito or so much more when it is bigger (or less when it is smaller) than it. And as for those who believe, they know that it is the Truth from their Lord, but as for those who disbelieve, they say: ‘What did Allah intend by this parable?’ By it He misleads many, and many He guides thereby. And He misleads thereby only those who are Fasiqoon (the rebellious, disobedient to Allah).” (Soorah Al-Baqarah, 2:26)
• When the male mosquito reaches the stage of adulthood, he looks for a female using the sense of hearing, because the male’s hearing is not like that of the female’s; it is stronger and better.
The sound emitted by the female is detected by the male, who picks it up by means of tiny hairs at the end of his antennae. While mating with the female, the male has hooks located next to the genitals which help him to hold on the female.
When the males fly, they do so in groups like clouds. If any female enters this flock, a male will mate with her while flying, holding onto the female with these hooks and completing the process within a short time, then the male goes back to the group.
• When carrying the eggs, the female sucks blood in order to nourish the eggs. In the summer or autumn, the female lays the eggs on damp leaves or beside dried-up lakes. Using sensors located beneath her abdomen, the female looks for a suitable place to lay her eggs, and when she finds a suitable place, she lays her eggs. The length of each egg is no more than 1 millimeter, and it is white in color. One or two hours after being laid, the egg changes color and becomes black, so that it will not be spotted by other insects and birds and become food for them. This is a kind of protection for them. And some eggs change color according to their environment.
• The respiratory system of the mosquito larva is a kind of pipe that it sticks out of the water and breathes through. The larva that lives in water hangs upside down, just like a diver. In order to prevent water entering this pipe through which it breathes, it excretes a gluey substance from its body. Were it not for this proboscis it would not be able to breathe, and were it not for the viscous fluid that it produces to prevent water from entering this pipe, water would enter it. Were it not for these two systems, the mosquito would not be able to live.
• When the mosquito emerges from the cocoon, its head must not touch the water, because a single moment without air would cause it to die. Hence, if there is any wind or current in the water, this spells doom for the mosquito.
The cocoon splits from the top, and at this stage there is grave danger, when water enters the cocoon. But the area where the cocoon splits is the area where the head emerges from, and in order to prevent water from touching it, the head is covered with a special kind of glue which prevents water from reaching the head. This is very important because any breath of wind could make it fall into the water and die. Hence, the mosquito puts its feet on the water when it emerges.
• The mosquito is of no less significance than the blue whale whose weight is more than one hundred and fifty tons and whose offspring consumes in one feeding more than thirty kilograms and its intake of milk in three daily feedings is one ton. On an average, the blue whale consumes four tons of fish, and this is not a particularly heavy meal for it. The creation of the mosquito is no less than the creation of the whale. The evidence of that is:
“...you can see no fault in the creation of the Most Gracious.” (Soorah Al-Mulk, 67:3)
“Fir‘awn (Pharaoh) said: ‘Who then, O Moosa, is the Lord of you two? Moosa said: ‘Our Lord is He Who gave to each thing its form and nature, then guided it aright’.” (Soorah Ta-Ha, 20:49-50)
It is a perfect creation, starting from the virus that cannot be seen except with an electron microscope, and creatures even smaller than that, up to galaxies that are sixteen thousand million light years away. Such is Allah, the Lord of the Worlds, Who created and perfected all things (cf. Soorah Al-Naml, 27:88).

[from “Scientific Miracles in the Oceans & Animals” by “Yusuf Al-Hajj Ahmad”, published by Darussalam, 2010]

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