From egg to adult in 12 days
Egg stage
The life cycle of Aedes mosquitoes is the same. Both the Asian Tiger mosquito (Aedes Albopictus) and the Yellow Fever mosquito (Aedes Aegypti) grow from an egg into a an adult in about 12 days.
After the females have taken a blood meal, they will find a suitable spot to deposit their eggs. The eggs can resist dry periods of time and will start to hatch after rain or flooding. Both Aedes species like to deposit their eggs in natural reservoirs. Favorites are forks in trees, or man made reservoirs like old (car) tyres, empty bottles, vases, flower pot dishes and even small plastic bottle caps. This is why they are called ‘container breeders’.
Larval and pupa stage
After 2-3 days the eggs will start to hatch and enter four larvae stages. The four larvae stages will last from 6 to 8 days in total. During this time, the larvae will hang from the water surface and breath via a ‘snorkel’. After they survived the larvae stage they will turn into a pupa. The pupa stage is relatively short and after 1 to 2 days the pupa will turn into an adult mosquito.
Adult stage
Once mosquitoes have turned into adults, the life of the male and female is quite different.
It will take the males about two days to develop their reproductive organs, after which they will start finding females. Males are recognized by their large antennae that pick up the wing beat of females. After the male has found his partner he will only live for another three to five days. During this time he feeds on fruit juices and plant nectar. Since male mosquitoes don’t lay eggs, they don’t need blood meals to lay eggs and therefore they do not bite humans. Females on the contrary do lay eggs and in order to do so they need blood meals for the development of those eggs. So females do bite humans.
After a female has been fertilized once by a male, she is able to produce about 300 eggs during her lifetime, which last anywhere from one to two months. During this time she will lay on average three batches of around 100 eggs.
The growth of a mosquito population
Under the right circumstances and with this kind of a life cycle, small mosquito populations can grow very fast into large(r) populations. A small example that starts with just one female!
The first day: 1 female x 300 eggs —> 150 males, 150 females. After 2 weeks an extra 150 adult females, that also live one months, will each lay an average of another 150 females.
After 6 weeks: 150 females x 150 females = 22.500 females.
After 12 weeks: 22500 females x 150 females = 3.375.000 females
After 18 weeks: 3.375.000 x 150 females = 506.250.000 females. That is more than half a billion females and they all need blood.