Mosquito Miscreants

Mischief, mayhem, and malaria.

Game Clue: A tiny bite can make you itch, make you sneeze, make you twitch.

— Jumanji

Mosquitoes. They ruin your picnics, disrupt your naps, and suck your blood. Although they measure less than an inch long at most, they kill more people than any other animal, up to 700,000 a year. They're responsible for the spread of diseases including, but not limited to, malaria, yellow fever, Chikungunya, West Nile virus, dengue fever, filariasis, and the Zika virus, and statistically, they basically caused the most deaths to humans by animals (even more than snakes). Expect to hear them long before you see them and the characters to run away in a hand swatting panic when they swarm on them; some might be covered in a plethora of bites when it's all over. Even if the situation isn't dire, expect someone to be immensely bothered by the tiny terrors. Typically found in nasty swamps or the rainforest. It doesn't matter if they are actually called Non Malicious Monsters, as far as their victims (that is, everyone) are concerned, they are still miscreants.

In real life, only the female mosquito sucks blood, and even then, only when she's going to lay eggs; the rest of the time she's a pollen feeder. If a male mosquito bites someone, it's a case of Insect Gender-Bender.

Compare Macabre Moth Motif and Moth Menace, which give the "bad insect" treatment to moths, Flies Equals Evil for the mosquitoes' equally unpleasant relatives, and Bloodsucking Bats and Vampiric Draining, for other bloodsucking creatures in fiction.

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Examples:

Advertising

• In this commercial for the Sega Genesis, a mosquito appears, sucking the blood of a gamer, which the announcer uses as an analogy for being charged up to $10.00 more to play games like Mortal Kombat (1992) and NBA Jam on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System than on the Genesis. The mosquito appears looking quite plump, until the gamer swats it with a newspaper that says, WELCO METOT HENEX TLEVEL, Sega's slogan at the time, in the Crossword Puzzle section.

Anime & Manga

• GeGeGe no Kitarō (1996): The Byochu are mosquito yokai who serve Anagura-Nyudo and get sent to make construction workers ill.
• Hunter × Hunter gives us a human-mosquito Chimera Ant early in the titular arc, a very Ax-Crazy Laughing Mad one at that, which winds up being killed by Killua.
• In JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean, D an G's Stand, Yo-Yo Ma, secretly attacks Jolyne by sending mosquitoes from his mouth and having them inject his acid into her body.
• One chapter of Nichijou sees Yuuko Aioi being kept awake by a mosquito buzzing around her bedroom. She tries increasingly dramatic ways to kill the insect only to fail each time. Instead, her bounding around her room leads her mother to come, smack her down, and tell her to keep quiet at that late hour.
• One-Punch Man: One of the first villains fought by Genos was a genetically engineered mosquito-woman, who ends up surviving but with major damage.
• Soul Eater: The aptly named Mosquito is The Dragon to Big Bad Wannabe Arachne, and has a mosquito/vampire motif, and drinks his victims' blood from his Gag Nose.
• Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL has Mosquito Ninja (Scritch in the dub), a duelist who's Animal Motif is mosquitoes and turns into a Half-Human Hybrid of one when dueling and can inject hallucinogens into opponents.

Asian Animation

• BoBoiBoy Galaxy: In a forbidden area of outer space lie swarms of giant space mosquitoes, which drain all the energy out of any spaceship which enters the region.

Comic Books

• Disney Ducks Comic Universe: In Back to the Klondike, Goldie hung mosquito traps all around White Agony Creek. When the ducks trap Blackjack the bear in a cage, she shoots them down and releases a huge swarm of mosquitos who chase Donald and Scrooge.

Films — Animated

• Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 features Mosqui-toasts, which are mosquitoes with toast for bodies, and, while not particularly dangerous, are just as annoying as normal mosquitoes.
• In Lilo & Stitch, Pleakley believes that mosquitoes are an endangered and a wondrous species, but changes his mind after getting up close and personal with them in Hawaii.
• One of Begley Beetle's henchmen in Fleischer Studios' Mr. Bug Goes to Town is a mosquito aptly-named Smack and the miscreant stereotype seems to apply to the insect world, along with the fly named Swat, too, as he doesn't wish to be seen hanging out with them.
• "Self Service," a short by Bruno Bozzetto. The little pests make a whole capitalistic dream out of their source. Until it runs dry...

Film — Live-Action

• Jumanji: One of the "jungle hazards" from the board game world of Jumanji is a swarm of huge mosquitoes, each with enough strength to pierce a car's visor with its proboscis. The sequel makes mosquitoes a fatal weakness of Seaplane McDonough.
• Mosquito features a race of giant mutant mosquitoes wreaking havoc.
• Robot: At one point in the film, a mosquito bites Sana, and Chitti goes out of his way to find that specific mosquito and negotiate with it to apologize to Sana. The mosquito's demands are that it gets some blood of a specific type (which Chitti complies by leading it to Vaseegaran's bumbling assistants) and to destroy all pesticide and other instruments used to hurt mosquitos (which Chitti refuses). At the end, the mosquito formally apologizes to Sana.

Literature

• In Dr. Seuss's On Beyond Zebra, one of the crazy creatures is the "sneedle", a ferocious mosquito with a super-sharp "stinger." Unlike a mosquito, a slap won't kill it; you have to shoot it with a kerosene-saturated navy bean.
• Ann Leckie's The Raven Tower: Inverted with the Physical Goddess known as "The Myriad", who prefers to manifest as vast clouds of mosquitoes, but is a Creepy Good friend of the narrator and a faithful patron to her human worshipers. However, it's mentioned that her name is used as a curse in other lands, so she might play the trope straight for those who don't enjoy her patronage.
• The Scar: The Anophelii are a Dying Race of humanoid mosquitoes who once ravaged the continent in a nightmarish "Malarial Queendom". The females are so consumed by their Horror Hunger that they're nearly mindless and will exsanguinate anyone they can reach in seconds. Zig-zagged with the males, who are peaceful, vegetarian scholars.

Tabletop Games

• Dungeons & Dragons, Advanced D&D supplement Deities & Demigods Cyclopedia: In the Melnibonean Mythos section, Nnuuurrrr'c'c is the master of all swarming insects. It takes the form of a 40-foot-tall mosquito that can kill any creature by draining its blood.
• Mosquitoes and other blood-sucking flies are a stapple for the color Black in Magic: The Gathering, due to not only being nasty but being found in the swamps that the color is connected to.
• Pathfinder: The Lawful Evil swamp blights are always surrounded by, and can control, clouds of biting mosquitoes.

Toys

• Beast Wars: The toyline exclusively has the Predacon mosquito named Transquito. He's not just evil, but obnoxious to the point where he's despised by enemy and ally alike.
• LEGO Galaxy Squad: The Mosquitoids are a common breed of Insectoid Alien Mook, and their ship, the Warp Stinger, is also designed after a mosquito.

Video Games

• Alice in Wonderland (2010): The Mushroom Forest is populated with gigantic mosquitoes.
• In Best Fiends, the antagonistic past of Edward the mosquito is hinted at through his bio. In the present of the game, he has changed his ways against sucking blood, and is also the mascot of the Malaria No More movement the game helps sponsor.
• Bug has mosquito enemies found in Splot! that either try to rush Bug or strike the ground like darts. These appear in large groups and have a surprising amount of health for a Zerg Rush enemy.
• Bug Fables:
  • While the actual mosquitoes in the game mostly avert this, Midges, their related species who never developed the sapience and remained the animalistic "lesser bugs", play this straight, as they are common enemies in the game. They prey on unsuspecting bugs and suck their fluids to restore their own health. They also hunt in packs, and if one member of their pack is damaged, all other Midges will immediately lunge on the attacker without wasting their turn, making them much more dangerous if not dealt with quickly. In one sidequest, the team must defeat the Broodmother, a giant Midge boss who made her nest in the Power Plant, which caused a lot of problems in the Honey Factory.
  • Shades the salesman from the Underground Tavern is a shady mosquito merchant who occasionally tends to sell stolen stuff to unsuspecting customers, such as selling Vi her Beemerang without mentioning that it was stolen, which almost got her into trouble at one point when the boomerang owner noticed her using it. While he is still technically an ally, since the rare medals he sells tend to be useful, Kabbu still feels uneasy about buying stuff from a thief.
• Darkest Dungeon: The antagonists from the first DLC are mosquito-themed vampires.
• In Dark Souls, the Blighttown is infested with giant mosquitoes which can inflict poison by biting you or spitting their blood at you. They also respawn frequently, almost immediately after killing one. Thankfully, they don't respawn indefinitely and each mosquito only respawns for up to 7 times.
• Diablo II has Giant Mosquitoes, monsters found only in Act 3, and Swarms, monsters found in Acts 2-4. Both of them are capable of draining stamina from the player when attacking.
• Flea (2020): One of the enemy types encountered in the game are mosquitoes.
• Hollow Knight has Squits, mosquito-like enemies who attack their prey by charging on it with razor-sharp proboscis. They have an upgraded variant in the Colosseum of Fools, known as Armoured Squits, which possess more health than their regular counterparts.
• Keineged an nor: Trying to rush to the door in the third room leads to you getting dazzled by a white flash of light and a random mosquito shredding all your body parts.
• The PC Mega Man (Classic) games made by Hi Tech Expressions under license of Capcom feature various nature menaces instead of robots, including giant mosquitoes that are hard to be killed, as many of the enemies of those games.
• Mega Man X: Corrupted: Neurohack Mosquito is a mosquito Maverick who is plotting on forming a scrap army from the junkyard.
• Mister Mosquito casts you in the role of a Mosquito who spends the entire game driving the Yamada family crazy with his bloodsucking.
• Pokémon Sun and Moon introduces the Ultra Beast Buzzwole, a hulking alien abomination that resembles a mosquito. While not overtly "evil", it is aggressive, and the player must subdue it like the other Ultra Beasts.
• In Quest for the Shaven Yak: Starring Ren Hoëk & Stimpy, Giant mosquitoes serve as enemies in The Stinking Wet Bayou.
• Rayman: The first mini-boss Rayman faces is Bzzit, a giant mosquito. After beating and befriending Bzzit he helps Rayman through the Dream Forest to face Moskito, a red-colored mosquito that serves as the first boss in the game.
• Sonic the Hedgehog: In Sonic CD, the Needlenose enemy is a robotic mosquito that plunges down at Sonic if he gets near him. This badnik re-appears in Sonic Triple Trouble and Knuckles Chaotix.
• Super Mario Bros.:
  • Virtual Boy Wario Land: The Mastah Mosquito is an oversized mosquito encountered in Stage 7. When Wario stand on areas Mastah Mosquito inhabits, it will emerge and charges towards Wario using its sharp attack.
  • Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door: Jabbies are mosquito-like insects that reside in The Great Tree alongside the Punies. The Jabbies partnered up with the X-Nauts to take the tree for themselves, and are fought on two sections blocking Mario's progress.
  • Super Mario Odyssey: Urban Stingbies are mosquito variants of the Stingby, they attack Mario on sight and explode when they hit their mark.
• In the Unreal series there's the Razor Fly creature, often simply called Fly. It's a small-to-medium sized fly creature that can be defeated with three Enforcer shots and whose only attack is to ram upon the player and hit them with their tail. In certain levels, some actions will trigger a swarm of these. Mosquitoes can be found in the outdoor levels of the game, and in the Chizra - Nali Water God ancient temple, among other natural locations of Na Pali, and in later games in the Invasion gametype as one of the regular mooks that spawn.
• Valheim's aptly-named Deathsquitoes are among the most reviled enemies in the game. They're aggressive (meaning they spot you from, and chase you over, long distances including in neighboring biomes), annoying to kill (they have very little HP but since they fly fast they come at you from unwieldy angles), and their damage is ridiculously high (90 base damage for a single hit, more than even trolls).

Web Animation

• The Kirlian Frequency: In a Bait-and-Switch, one short seems to be about vampires threatening the town, but turns out the flying bloodsuckers out at night are actually giant mosquitoes.

Web Original

• Exaggerated in 20020, the sequel to 17776. One of the players for the University of Alabama-Birmingham hates mosquitoes so much, she ran for Senate on a platform to eradicate the species.

Western Animation

• In the Camp Lazlo episode "Lumpy Treasure", Raj gets bitten by a multitude of mosquitoes on his butt and the bites form the shape of a treasure map. When the Jelly Bean trio finds the treasure at the end the mosquitoes take it for themselves.
• The Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers episode "Chocolate Chips" has a swarm of mosquitoes as the minions of a German chocolatier. Their function: to administer the chocolatier's mind control juice to his zombie slaves. They provide the trope page image.
• In He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (2021), Mos'quita-ra is a Desert Bandit who hunts for sources of energy to consume. She comes to blow with the Masters of the Universe when she gets the urge to feed on their Power of Grayskull.
• In The Huckleberry Hound Show episode "Skeeter Trouble", Huck's camping trip is thrown into chaos when a mosquito continuously tries to bite his nose. Things get worse later when a whole swarm comes after him.
• Kid vs. Kat: In "Buzz Off", Kat turns two mosquitoes gigantic from them drinking his Alien Blood and uses them to attack Coop, only for the latter to take control of one of them and engage Kat in a dogfight. The two mosquitoes turn on both of them after being mistreated and deciding they're done being told what to do.
• The Looney Tunes short "Of Thee I Sting" features mosquitos as an air force squadron training for a mission.
• Molly of Denali: The plot of "Berry Itchy Day" revolves around the Mabrays desperately trying to avoid being swarmed by mosquitoes while picking berries.
• In the Nature Cat episode "Goin' Batty", one of the obstacles that Nature Cat runs into is being surrounded by several mosquitoes, biting him. Justified in that while his friends do put on bug spray prior to going to the Cocono Cave, he doesn't due to being too excited to see the bats and not wanting to be late for that occasion.
• Mosquitos appear in the Private Snafu shorts "Private Snafu vs. Malaria Mike", "Target Snafu" and "It's Murder She Says", which are all the prevention of malaria and other mosquito-borne diseases.
• In The Ren & Stimpy Show Camping Episode, Ren was bitten by a swarm of mosquitoes and drained of his blood while sleeping. Stimpy, however appeared to be unharmed.
• The story arc of Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is kick-started by a swarm of Ooze injecting mosquitoes, Oozesquitoes, being released onto an unsuspecting New York City and mutating random citizens. This crisis forces the turtles out of the sewers and onto the surface to thwart the wannabe supervillains and protect the populace.
• On Rocko's Modern Life, a mosquito with a yellow bow on her head bites Filburt when he's sick. She then flies off (getting infected by Filburt's disease and falling apart in the process), and is eaten by Bev (a toad). Bev does not like the taste of mosquitoes, even waking up Ed just to tell him she ate one. The next morning, Bev wakes up with her head and throat swollen to Body Horror levels.
• In the Rugrats (1991) episode "Angelica Nose Best", a mosquito bites Angelica's nose when she's asleep. She doesn't get sick, but it does swell up and she thinks it's because she lies, like Pinocchio.
• The Simpsons: In one episode (Little Girl in the Big Ten), Bart is bitten by a foreign mosquito that stowed away in a toy he got at the Krusty Burger and becomes very sick. He gets quarantined in a bubble out of fear that the disease is contagious.
• Solar Opposites: A swarm of mosquitoes are sent inside The Wall to suck all the fluids out of the body of any shrunken person.
• In the Tiny Toon Adventures short "Easy Biter", Hamton becomes a target for a hungry and persistent mosquito in the middle of the night.
• Touché Turtle and Dum Dum: A giant mutant mosquito created by a Mad Scientist escapes and causes no end of trouble in "The Big Bite," necessitating intervention by Touché and Dum Dum.
• In the Wacky Races episode, "The Super Silly Swamp Sprint", Dick Dastardly uses a squadron of remote-controlled mechanical mosquitoes to attack the other racers. Though they succeed in briefly incapacitating the Arkansas Chug-a-Bug and the Crimson Haybailer, the Slag Brothers attack them with their clubs, and Professor Pat Pending attacks them with his extra big fly swatter, sending them back to Dastardly and Muttley.

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