Happy Valentine’s Day from Dread Skeeter

Guest Blogger: Dread Skeeter, the mosquito barrier

Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, the day of chocolates, flowers and hearts; the perfect day to tell those you care about that you love them. As I’m sure all of you know, I love kids and pets and do my best to protect them against annoying mosquitoes, ticks and the dangerous diseases they spread. Along with the rest of my Mosquito Squad, a number of people and animals help me on my quest to Fight the Bite. In the spirit of Valentine’s Day, I want to tell them I love them.

• Bill Gates. I love you for donating $750 Million to help fighting malaria, a preventable and curable disease that kills a child every minute in Africa.
• The Praying Mantis. You may be difficult for me to see in the wild, with all that green and all, but I love you for preying on mosquitoes that may come too near.
• Dragonflies. One of your favorite meals is the mosquito during your short life and I love you for doing your part while you can.
• Christine Rampone. I love the captain of the US Women’s Soccer not only for kicking butt on the field, but for being the newest face of Lyme disease. It just goes to show that Lyme disease doesn’t discriminate.
• Bats. I love you for your massive eating skills, eating between 600 and 1,000 insects per hour! You greatly reduce the number of mosquitoes around to bite us people.
• Mosquito Fish and Mosquito Crustaceans. You save us from ever seeing a number of mosquitoes as you prey on them in their larval phase before they hatch as adults. I love you for that.
• Guinea Fowls. You’re weird looking birds, but I love you for the service you provide. Finding and eating ticks in the wild stops those buggers from spreading Lyme disease.

Happy Valentine’s Day to all of you.

Ugh, enough of that mushy stop, let’s go kill those pests!