# How many mosquitoes are in the world?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-mosquitoes-are-in-the-world/424445>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [October 29, 2007, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-mosquitoes-are-in-the-world/424445 "2007-10-29T15:42:20Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Sapo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ec9cab/32.png) [@Sapo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sapo)\
**Post date:** [October 30, 2007, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-mosquitoes-are-in-the-world/424445/21 "2007-10-30T03:40:49Z")

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This thread went well. It was an interesting question, though.

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**Author:** ![Melanc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/aeb1de/32.png) [@Melanc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melanc)\
**Post date:** [October 30, 2007, 10:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-mosquitoes-are-in-the-world/424445/22 "2007-10-30T10:47:31Z")

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[QUOTE=KlondikeGeoff]  
Probably because it is next to impossible to answer such a thing. Even the ant estimate can’t be more than a wild-ass guess, can it? Do you have a cite for the ant study and what the methodology was?  
[/QUOTE]  
_Hölldobler, Bert, and E. O. Wilson. 1990. The Ants. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts._, according to [Re: Percentage of biomass made up by ants](http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/may2001/989366143.En.r.html). This seems to be pretty much the standard literature on the topic, and probably is the work that originated this ant-mass factoid. More specific references should be found in there.

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