This is 1,000 mosquito eggs. And in just a couple days, they're going to hatch into a thousand actual flying mosquitoes that I'm going to be doing the most interesting experiments with, like feeding them a pool of blood. Anyways, right now, the mosquito eggs we have are dormant, but all they need to hatch is a bit of water.
The second a dry mosquito egg touches water, the embryos inside absorb it and basically come to life. Literally, within only a few minutes of adding in the water, check out this area right here. A tiny little white speck started to poke out from the top of this single egg.
Everyone, this is a mosquito larvae, also known as a wiggler. Yeah, you can probably tell why they're called wigglers based on how much they wiggle. But over the next few days, this will eat food and literally evolve into a fully grown mosquito.
It will actually be one of the craziest things you'll ever see. Oh, but yeah, I almost forgot. We don't just have one.
We have 1,000 mosquitoes that we're going to be raising. And only a minute later, another wiggler started to wiggle out. then another and soon enough this tank was starting to get overrun with our new pets.
I have to be so careful in this video. Oh my gosh, this is so weird. Literally 1,000 mosquito larae are right here.
But if we want them to turn into real mosquitoes, there's a couple things we got to do to speed up their growth process. Of course, starting with feeding them. And I don't even know what these things eat.
I mean, they're practically microscopic at this stage. Yeah. I mean, I guess let me just search.
What do mosquito larvae eat? Enter. And it looks like they eat microscopic organic matter.
Oh, I actually have an idea of how I could do this. This is fish food. Yeah.
Um, not super special, but for when the larae are this small, it works perfectly to crush up into tiny little pieces. And immediately after dropping in some of this crushed food, it sink down to the bottom for the larae to start eating. Since the larae were just born about an hour ago, they're still so unbelievably small that it's just so hard to see.
But you can kind of make out the shape of its mouth if you look very closely right here. It's insane how there's a brain and actual life in something this tiny. Anyways, you can see they tried to eat most of this food, but it's still a bit big.
So, once it dissolves into the water, it'll become even easier for these guys to eat it. But things get fun quickly because these wigglers more than double in size every 24 hours. So, I have a feeling if we come back tomorrow, these guys are going to be a lot bigger.
Good morning, Terrainus. I just woke up. Um, the mosquitoes are probably bigger now.
I haven't really checked though. Look. Wait, I haven't even zoomed in yet.
And wait, you can literally see. Oh my gosh. Yeah, if you can't tell by this footage, the larae are so much bigger now.
And when I turned on my camera to record them in detail, I was amazed by how much they grew literally overnight. The day before, this was the most zoomed in footage I could get of these guys. But now, the larae almost filled up the entire frame.
And look at how much more detailed they are. This black bulb at the bottom is their heads. And they're so big already, we can make out their mouth a lot easier.
And we can even see their tiny little eyes. These guys are so cool cuz you can literally see how their mouth works as a little boat motor essentially. And they can just use it to slowly drift among the water surface.
Sometimes they'll even curl up and start sucking up microscopic food particles from the surface. Okay, well this video is all about doing the funnest experiments with the mosquitoes. So next up, I want to test their light instincts because if you didn't know, adult flying mosquitoes are insanely attracted to light.
I mean, they'll just swarm light at night, but I was wondering if that instinct starts when they are babies. Well, to figure it out, I turned off all the lights in my garage and watched what they did. Pretty quickly, the larae actually started to rise to the surface way more.
If you remember, most of the larae were spending most of their time together, sort of near the bottom of the tanks when the lights were on. But yeah, with the lights off, they all like to be on the surface apparently. Okay, that's pretty interesting.
But now what I want to do is take this super bright studio light and position it pointing right at the side of the enclosure. So that way we can turn it on. Oh, there we go.
And we can see what they did. Yeah, let's see. And literally the second after turning on this light magic, the larae started to migrate away from it.
And they all started to gather up on the right side as far away from the light as possible. Wait, so these guys are moving away from the light? Huh, that's interesting.
The fully grown mosquitoes, they'll completely swarm light. But when they're larae, they will completely avoid it. So to confirm my theory, I turned off this light and moved it over to the right side.
And immediately the larae did exactly what I thought they would, and they went back to the left side. Since I could kind of control where they were, I thought it'd be funny to kind of just swap the lights on and off on each side and um you know, make them do some exercise. Listen.
Okay, I got to train some strong, capable mosquitoes for when I put them up against a pile of blood. It's going to be so interesting. Dang, that is actually so cool to watch how they do that.
And apparently they do this because they don't want to get eaten by fish, of course. And if they're in the darkness, then it's obviously harder for the fishes to see them. But actually, very interestingly, while I was doing that last test, if I go and stir the floor around like that and zoom in, you can see there's tons of what almost looks like just dead mosquito larae that is just drifting around in the water.
I got worried for a second. I thought something was going around uh killing all the mosquitoes, but don't worry, I actually figured out that these are not dead mosquito larb. You see what these are are actually the old skin of our current larae.
You see, these guys apparently shed off their old skin four times before becoming a flying mosquito. Basically, just like how other animals will mol their skin off when it's time to grow bigger. So, of course, now that I know that, for the next experiment, I got to see if I can capture on camera a shot of them molting.
Basically, what I'm going to do is go and move my lights back to the, you know, the back of the enclosure. And basically, that's going to cause all the laraes to go and swim to the front and then I can just leave my camera running for like 24 hours and surely I can capture at least one of these guys molting to get that shot for you guys. So, yeah, I recorded this for like 2 hours and after thoroughly reviewing all of the footage, uh, none of the larae actually shed their skin, unfortunately.
But obviously, I was not going to give up. So, I spent hours actively recording with my camera, watching every single larae at the water surface. Apparently, they only mol out their skin when they're hanging upside down from the top.
And after about 2 hours, I found this larvae. You can tell he was about to moly by the fact that he was hanging upside down for a pretty long time without moving. And every now and then, he would try and twitch to squeeze out of his old skin.
If you look very closely right here, you can see his old skin starting to slide up and off. And this white part right here is his new skin underneath. But after watching this guy for like another hour, all of a sudden he uh just started to float down and he fell all the way to the floor and completely stopped moving.
Yeah, apparently the molting process is actually really grueling for mosquitoes. And there's a chance that they can use all their energy while doing it and die, which I guess just happened to this guy. Rest in peace, bro.
But of course, this was not going to stop me cuz I kept recording for longer and longer until I eventually caught this footage. Keep in mind this is literally the first footage on the internet of a mosquito larae molang because of how hard it is to catch. So you can't complain about how trash's footage quality is.
But anyways, you can see it started to shake up violently and it started to slide out of its old skin. This dark part is his new skin. And eventually he was able to fully slide out and only his malt was left behind.
It's so cool to watch this happen. And after it does, the new larae swims away and leaves the old skin behind. But that skin will probably get eaten by another larae very soon for some protein.
Let's go. I'm so happy we just got to see that. But in fact, I just spent so long trying to get that shot that almost all of our larae now are pretty much fully grown.
Meaning, yes, we are about to have a thousand mosquitoes hatching in just a matter of days. Um, and about that, it would be extremely illegal and just really bad if a mosquito escaped, let alone 1,000 mosquitoes. So, I have a feeling it's time we build some sort of containment system.
Oh, man. Now, thankfully, I had this big tank sitting in my garage, which would actually be a perfect fit to put over our current tank. So, when the mosquitoes hatch, they won't be able to just fly away.
But obviously, there's a big opening on the bottom, which would be bad if we had to move this. All the mosquitoes would get out. So, what I did was put our current tank in here while the big one was sideways.
And then I got this piece of clear acrylic that I'm going to be able to attach to the front. And when I attach this piece of acrylic, it's going to make sure no mosquitoes can get out. But you're probably wondering why I got all these massive holes right here.
Well, what I'm going to do is this. And as you can see, I just put mash in each of the corners so you know there can air can get in. But I left this hole open in the middle so I can put a little door here so we'll be able to put stuff in but mosquitoes won't be able to get out.
>> It's pretty simple to make though cuz all we got to do is attach this little sleeve contraption I made and put a clamp on the end. Basically how it works is if you want to put your arm inside, you go ahead and take off the safety clamp like that. And basically what you do is while you're holding it still, you got to carefully stretch your arm inside.
And then boom, when it's around your arm, it's very airtight and you can go ahead and put your arm inside. And you see, I have access to here and the mosquitoes won't be able to get out. And it's very easy to go and take my arm out, keep it shut, and then I can go and put the clamp back on.
And after I had my dad silicone the acrylic on, boom, this containment system is done. But guys, there's actually something I didn't tell you about these mosquitoes. In their life cycle, there's a whole another stage of life before becoming mosquitoes that lasts about a day.
And when I came back the next day to my tank, I noticed they were already entering it. Oh my gosh, guys. Look at what I just saw.
Take a look at the larae in here. You see these little circular things swimming around next to the actual larae? Those are the pupé and that means they're about to hatch.
You see, these pupé are also called tumblers because, well, they tumble down when they sense potential danger nearby. But the coolest thing is how these guys look. They got these weird scary looking eyes.
They got little horns that act as snorkels for oxygen. And of course, they look way different from a larvae with that cool shrimp shaped body. And if you're wondering how it looks when a larvae turns into a pupé, well, this awesome footage from Backyard Bug shows it.
Basically, the skin splits out the thorax area and very similarly to how the larae mulch, the new pupé will slide out. And yeah, it's pretty amazing. Yes, sir.
These guys are so cool. But we haven't even got to see the coolest part where they literally crawl out the pupé and it's like an alien movie. It's crazy.
But yeah, I don't think that shot's going to be too hard to get. Guys, we're on like day eight. And check what has just started to hatch.
Yep, that is a mosquito. Meaning there's like three mosquitoes in here right now. So, it shouldn't be long till we have much, much more.
You see, the pupé get darker and darker as they get closer to turning into a mosquito. So, since this pupé is bright white, I know he won't be hatching anytime soon. But these pupé here are extremely dark, meaning the mosquito is right under that skin, ready to crawl out.
So to make the shot even easier to get, I'm going to suck all the darkest pupé up into this little pipeette and put them in this container to make it easier to record. Now, since the mosquitoes have already started to hatch, I actually had to use the door I made to get my hand inside so they wouldn't escape. And I used my little pipe to start sucking up as many of the dark pupé as I could.
Then I put them into a temporary container and I started to film. Thankfully, the pupé hatched within only a few hours of turning black. So, it was literally only about an hour of recording till I caught this on camera.
Out of nowhere, this pupa here started to straighten out its tail. This makes a little tunnel here for the head of the mosquito to start squeezing out. It's so nasty.
But you can see how this area here just keeps inflating. The mosquito is literally being born in front of our eyes. And you can see how it's leaving the clear pupa skin behind.
All of a sudden, his little mouth pops out here that they use to suck blood. And soon after you can see his wings popped out as well. Oh my gosh, guys.
This is insane. Wait, this is happening right now. Finally, the legs stop sticking to the body and bada bing, bada boom, that's how a mosquito is born.
They'll basically stand here for like half an hour while they wait for their body and wings to harden up. Unfortunately, I am not allowed to just uh let this guy fly out. Yeah, when you hatch mosquitoes in your house, it is just illegal to let them escape.
So, I'm going to try and move them into this tank, but if I can't do it, I do um have this here. But thankfully, I didn't have to use that since it was super easy to just grab it with tweezers and let it loose in the containment system. W mosquitoes, bro.
That was one of the coolest things I have seen. Well, guys, it's been another few days, and I'm proud to say we have 100 plus mosquitoes now. I mean, we got tons just flying around.
We got even more just sitting all over the glass. And that's not even to mention all the mosquitoes just hiding around. Now I can test these guys with my last two mosquito experiments.
Starting with sticking my hand inside of the tank of mosquitoes. But in addition to my hand going in there, I've also got a couple kinds of mosquito repellent so we can test if these things actually work. I am definitely about to get bit.
So I started to apply the first mosquito repellent to my arm by spraying it. You see, mosquitoes are insanely attracted to the scent and heat of human skin. But somehow the spray stuff completely blocks all of those and messes with the mosquito senses.
Theoretically, when I stick my hand in there, I shouldn't get bit. Well, I guess let's just do this. And as I stuck my hand in, I got very nervous.
I hate mosquito bites. Um, they're flying very close. But yeah, I don't think they can even sense that this is a hand right now.
Yeah, I literally left my hand in there another 30 seconds and not a single mosquito even landed on it when normally they would definitely be swarming it. Dang, this stuff works good. If you need some mosquito repellent, I recommend this brand.
It's not sponsored or anything, but it's pretty good. But now, the second mosquito repellent I want to test. Well, you see this app right here?
This app claims to literally make a sound that will repel mosquitoes. Oh, do you hear that? It's like a high-pitched buzz.
Okay. Well, let's see if this works. Now, I've heard these apps are myths, but as I put my hand inside, the mosquitoes weren't instantly swarming it.
In fact, they were acting kind of similar to earlier when I was testing the spray stuff, even though I had thoroughly washed it all off my hand. Maybe these apps actually do work. That was until I found this when I took my hand out.
Okay, for a second I thought this app actually worked. Let me turn off this earpiercing sound. But then I realized I actually got bit like right there.
Yeah, I can definitely feel it. It's starting to itch and stuff. Don't use these apps, guys.
I can assure you they are fake, but I I guess this stuff kind of does work. Anyways, now it's time for the moment we've all been waiting for. Mosquitoes versus blood.
And yes, I actually have a jar of blood from a cow. Oh my gosh. Now, in order to make this have a chance to work, I had to fill up this little container with a bunch of blood.
And then I put some Saran wrap on top. This way, the mosquitoes could stick their little mouthpiece through it and get filled up with blood if they're hungry. Finally, I just warmed it up in the microwave so it would recreate the temperature that mosquitoes like, and I put it inside the tank.
Let's see what these mosquitoes do. Now, for the first like 20 minutes, pretty much none of the 100 mosquitoes were interested. They were kind of just hiding around and not moving much.
So, I kept trying tons of new stuff like dimming the lights because apparently mosquitoes don't like to eat under the bright light. And after trying so much stuff and recording for hours, not a singular mosquito tried to eat this blood. In this cool footage, you can see mosquitoes literally only take a couple seconds to land on an arm and get completely filled up with blood.
But for some reason, they only like to drink blood from arms and not just liquid blood apparently, like we have here. Literally all the mosquitoes had gathered up on the other side of the enclosure to avoid it. Yeah, I literally just tried to record this for two days.
None of the mosquitoes were interested. I didn't want to have to not upload the video just because the last experiment failed. The whole point of the channel is to get crazy animal ideas and see if they're actually possible.
Unfortunately, this one wasn't. But all the other experiments were and we got to learn all about the mosquito life cycle, which was just so interesting to watch. So, I had to upload this.
Hopefully, you guys learned something new and were entertained. And about these mosquitoes, I had to buy this massive freezer to terminate the colony cuz that's just legally required after filming with mosquitoes to ensure none of them escape. So, I'm going to get to doing that, guys.
But I guess see you later. Goodbye.
