Mosquito Deterrents

There’s just no getting around the fact that mosquitoes are more than nuisances – they’re dangerous and formidable opponents. We carry many excellent mosquito control products, but there are additional things one can do to improve their chances in the war between humans and mosquitoes. 

- BODY OINTMENTS - 

If you’re going to be out and about and know that mosquitoes will be a problem, you can begin your defense plan as soon as you get out of the shower. There are oils and lotions that are very helpful in repelling mosquitoes but choose carefully because some may actually be inviting bites.

• Certain essential oils, including lemon eucalyptus peppermint, lavender, geranium and citronella oil, have time-proven efficacy as repellents so apply them to your body generously. A secondary benefit of using these oils is the delightful scent that will surround you.  

• Catnip oil is another oil to try. According to this article, the oil is extracted from the catnip plant via steam distillation, and the process eliminates the chemicals that make catnip irresistible to cats. The catnip plant is known to have a scent mosquitoes dislike, so it only makes sense that the distilled oil would be even more repellent to them.

• For the most part, flowery perfumes and body lotions should be avoided. However, there is one strong exception to this rule: Avon’s Skin So Soft. Over many, many years millions of people have found this body oil to be an exceptional mosquito repellent. In fact, this product has been used by U.S. Marines as a mosquito repellent for more than 50 years on and around their training facility on Parris Island South Carolina. In the low country down there, mosquitoes are voracious, so these tough marines douse themselves in this sweet-smelling stuff. After all, it’s better to smell girly than be eaten alive. 

You should be aware that the above types of oils do not have the long-lasting effect that many commercial mosquito repellents do. On average, they last about two hours.

 - CLOTHING - 

After you have carefully considered what to put on your bare body, put a little extra thought into what you wear (after all, you’ll look good in anything). 

• Mosquitoes are attracted to the CO2 that mammals produce, but they also use their vision to zero in on a target. According to this article, as they fly characteristically slow and low to the ground, they respond to dark objects on the horizon. Which means you should probably choose a pastel as opposed to your favorite Goth outfit.

• This study takes the whole color thing one step further. It finds that mosquitoes like red, orange, black and cyan and snub green, purple, blue and white.

• Mosquitoes love the sweaty dirtiness of feet and there is very little as annoying as mosquito bites between your toes. For these reasons, skip the sandals and put some shoes on (even better, with socks).

• While summer seems more bearable in cool and flowing clothing, if you are interested in doing everything you can to avoid mosquitoes than you need to don some tightly woven synthetic clothing (extra points for a high tech athletic wear made for sun protection). Mosquitoes may seem small, but their proboscises are rather large insect-wise and simply cannot fit through some of these fabrics. The downside is that  you’ll need to wear long sleeves and pants for optimal results, which may be a little too much coverage on a particularly hot day.

 - OUTSIDE SPACES - 

No one is able to control the whole outdoors, of course, but you should look at the outdoor space you can control – your backyard, patio, porch or balcony.

• You probably already know that you should remove all standing water, but you may not be aware that mosquitoes only need a bottle-cap of water to lay their eggs in. It is also easy to overlook breeding spots like gutters, recycling bins, drains and saucers under plants. Instead of a quick once-over, give your outdoor space some careful

consideration to root out standing water.

• Reconsider the plants in your space to make sure you don’t have any that are welcoming to mosquitoes. If you do, remove them and add plants that repel skeeters. Nectar-producing flowers and water plants are attractive to mosquitoes, while the plants that contain the aforementioned oils are excellent repellents (there are others too). 

• Keep all your grasses cut down and remove any yard debris. Mosquitoes love to hide out in the relative safety of such places; it protects them from the elements – particularly sun and wind.

• Speaking of wind, mosquitoes are poor flyers so put a fan in your outdoor space. If it is set high enough mosquitoes will not be able to fight the wind it produces in order to get to you

• The proper outdoor lighting can also help with mosquito control. We are all familiar with the horde of insects beating against a porch or backdoor light, but a change of bulbs can element that behavior. Use incandescent or LED lighting, especially that which has a yellow glow, and you’ll see fewer mosquitoes and other flying insects.

Hopefully this has given you some ideas on how to lessen the effect of mosquitoes. All of these tips are valuable, but when used in conjunction with commercial mosquito control products you should see a marked improvement. If none of this works for you, you may just want to stay inside until the first frost kills the mosquitoes.

Submitted by Pam

What's This Bug? The Shaggy-Legged Gallinipper.

These days everyone wants to just get out and get on with their summer fun (except for those of us in AZ who are entering our self-imposed, heat-avoiding annual lockdown); but, remember there are hungry creatures out there waiting anxiously for your return. Case in point: The Shaggy-Legged Gallinipper (SLG). If you think this sounds like something you might hear on a show like “Moonshiners”, you aren’t far off. “Gallinipper” is an heirloom Southern term for an exceptionally large insect with a frightening bite. Which this is and it has hairy legs.

So, what is this bug? It's a mosquito (Psorophora ciliata), but not your average skeeter. It’s unusual in many ways. First of all, the SLG is big (as you’ve no doubt deduced) – like 3 to 6 times as big as a typical mosquito. It’s fairly rare and does not appear unless there has been abundant wet weather. It’s also an aggressive carnivorous predator that prefers other mosquitoes as prey, but does not limit itself to them. On the up side, it’s not a vector for disease transmission to humans.

SLG Distribution  

The SLG is a mosquito that is hard to miss and hard to forget. At about the size of a quarter, you will see these suckers coming. While their size may be intimidating, they are not the largest mosquito in the world. That honorific belongs to the genus Toxorhynchites and can be found worldwide. Toxorhynchites mosquitoes are huge, but at least they are not bloodsuckers. More on them here.

Although their territory is expanding as our climate changes, the SLG is primarily found in the Southeastern and Midwestern parts of the US. That being said, they have been reported as far north as Ontario and as far south as Argentina. Even though recent severe hurricanes and flooding have been followed by a rise in the SLG population, these are still uncommon mosquitoes. Everything has to fall into place for them to emerge in numbers, This is due to how they have adapted their lifecycle to respond to flooding events. SLG females have the ability to hold sperm until they find an ideal egg-laying time and location. They then fertilize the eggs as they are being laid and create an egg bank (which can contain a million eggs) for future hatching. For an SLG mom the perfect spot is not in standing water like many mosquitoes, it is on moist and low-lying ground that will likely flood at some point. This means they could be in anything from a drainage ditch to a woodland meadow. There the eggs will sit for as long as it takes for water to reach and cover them, then they will hatch. This waiting period can be years-long long, but the eggs are specially adapted to remain viable when dry and can easily overwinter. Once a hurricane or some sustained thunderstorms bring water to them, all these patient eggs will burst out all at once and the race will be on to start the next generation.

A female with her syringe-like proboscis

 Due to the transient nature of the pools from which the SLG emerges, these mosquitoes have a short eggs-to-adults period at just over a week. The adults then only live for a couple of weeks. Both of these are factors in why they grow so large and ferocious. They first grow big in their larval stage when they are eager carnivores, dining on other mosquito larvae and other aquatic invertebrates, and size matters when it comes to the ability to capture and consume prey. Likewise, being bigger and stronger for their short lives means that they can produce more eggs or sperm and do not need to feed to bulk up. Females may only need one full blood meal to get the nutrition she needs, which reduces the likelihood that she will seek out a human to bite and also puts her out of the disease-transmission game. However, by all accounts, you don’t want to get bit even once by one of these. It has been reported that their bite feels like a stabbing and is strong enough to go through two layers of cotton.

Here at ARBICO, we have some fabulous mosquito control options to arm yourself with before heading out there this summer. However, if you live in certain areas that are prone to flooding and/or hurricanes and still hope to be out enjoying nature in the coming months, be aware that you may get nailed by a large and strong lady mosquito. But, she’ll probably only bite once. Of course, she has billions of sisters that she hangs out with, so……

Submitted by Pam

What’s This Bug? The Crane Fly.

Here in Tucson, we are in the middle of Crane Fly season and it's creeping people out all over the city. These gangly insects are everywhere – and I mean everywhere; I even found a dead one in my purse. This phenomenon happens every year, but the numbers are greater when the area experiences wet weather late in the previous year. This was the case for our city in late 2019 and into early 2020. Crane Fly larvae grows best in damp soil and the accumulated rain triggered growth in wildflowers and grasses, which provided a stable food source for the root-eating larvae. With all that organic matter to feast on, the larvae population grew and thrived. Which leads us to this moment, when large numbers of adults have grown from that larvae and are now out looking for mates.

People around here have to run a gauntlet of  these quivering critters to get through their front doors. Like many other insects, Crane Flies are attracted to light; so avoiding these clusters can be tricky. You can turn off the light by your door, but they will still see the light leaking out from inside. So, unless you turn all your lights off, you will probably just have to deal with them and wait them out - they will only be around a couple of weeks.


Crane Flies must be one of the most wrongly identified insects out there. They are most commonly mistaken for mosquitoes, and for many people they spark a sort of primal fear of that particular insect. But, Crane Flies are not mutant mosquitoes plotting to suck you dry of blood. They are not mosquitoes at all or even closely related –they are members of the fly family (Tipulidae spp.) and only share a passing resemblance to mosquitoes.

It is not only misidentification that plagues Crane Flies, but widespread misunderstanding of their capabilities and motivations in life. Hence the Mosquito-eating monikers like “Mosquito Hawk”. Crane Flies do not, despite the deepest desires of some people, eat mosquitoes. In fact, they do not have the mouth parts to eat anything (or bite – more on that in a minute). Some have a visible proboscis, which some scientists say they use to suck up flower nectar. Other scientists dispute this feeding claim and believe they do not eat at all as adults and survive by living off the fat stores accumulated in their larval stage. Lending credence to the not-eating, energy-conserving hypothesis is their activity level; they don’t fly around endlessly. They sort of bump-jump-fly and then find a spot to cling to.

Because they do not have the proper mouth parts or stingers, Crane Flies are harmless to people. They cannot (so will not) bite, sting or suck on people. For all these reasons, they also do not carry diseases. Their Daddy-Long-Legs-combined-with-mosquito looks and their twitchy movements may give you the willies, but they pose no danger.

While adult Crane Flies are completely harmless, the same cannot necessarily be said for their voracious larval form (which is 95% of their lives). Crane Fly larvae are great decomposers; they consume all sorts of organic material in the soil. However, they will not discriminate between unwanted organic matter and desirable plant roots. So, for those in search of the perfect lawn, they can be seen as a problem. Keeping your lawn healthy will discourage excessive feeding (check out our lawn products here) and treating the area with beneficial nematodes (we recommend NemAttack™ Steinernema feltiae) should keep their numbers down. For more on controlling Crane Fly larvae, read this article.

If you are still convinced that the current Crane Fly situation in Tucson is horrific, consider what it must be like in the Sichuan province of China. Back in 2017, outside the city of Chengdu, a monster-sized Crane Fly was captured. It has since been confirmed to be the world’s largest.

There are some people who see Crane Flies as deeply spiritual beings and their appearance as a blessing. This site gives more details on this unique vision of a unique creature.

Here's a video for more general information on Crane Flies.

Adult Crane Flies may be aesthetically challenged, but they serve a purpose beyond their own reproduction. They are a bounty to insect-loving animals in our environment. Birds, bats, lizards and other wildlife are currently having their own version of Thanksgiving over-eating. I can envision them in their homes, contentedly sleeping off their feast – just like Uncle Fred on the couch after too much turkey.                                                     

Submitted by Pam