# Kill the Mosquitoes! Green be damned! **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 4, 2011, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kill-the-mosquitoes-green-be-damned/591419 "2011-08-04T03:28:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Merneith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/57b2e6/32.png) [@Merneith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merneith)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2011, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kill-the-mosquitoes-green-be-damned/591419/41 "2011-08-06T02:14:26Z")
elucidator, have you considered putting up a bat house? Bats are Nature’s way of telling mosquitoes not to get cocky. A single bat can eat thousands of mosquitos each week. Small bat houses have room for around a dozen bats and larger models can hold hundreds. Here’s an article about bat houses at the Bat Conservation site - [http://www.batcon.org/index.php/get-involved/install-a-bat-house/subcategory/intro.html](http://www.batcon.org/index.php/get-involved/install-a-bat-house/subcategory/intro.html) You can buy the houses at most gardening stores. There’s lots of places online too. I don’t know what kind of bats you have up in Minnesota. Brown bats, probably. A local gardening group or university would be able to tell you about attracting some bats to your yard. ETA: Bat houses at amazon [http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/104-3796580-2511924?field-keywords=bat%20house&url=index%3Dblended](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/104-3796580-2511924?field-keywords=bat%20house&url=index%3Dblended) ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2011, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kill-the-mosquitoes-green-be-damned/591419/42 "2011-08-06T02:48:37Z")
Bats do not target mosquitoes. They eat bugs that are immediately available and easy to catch. [http://www.texasmosquito.org/Bats.html](http://www.texasmosquito.org/Bats.html) ---
**Author:** ![Frodo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frodo/32/302_2.png) [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2011, 12:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kill-the-mosquitoes-green-be-damned/591419/43 "2011-08-06T12:03:41Z")
> [@Merneith](#): > > elucidator, have you considered putting up a bat house? Bats are Nature’s way of telling mosquitoes not to get cocky. Of course, then you have the problem of getting rid of the bats, for that I think you’ll find eagles usefull, now, to get rid of the eagles you’ll need… ---
**Author:** ![Merneith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/57b2e6/32.png) [@Merneith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merneith)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2011, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kill-the-mosquitoes-green-be-damned/591419/44 "2011-08-06T12:32:12Z")
It certainly sounds like elucidator’s mosquitoes are immediately available. Aside from that, bats don’t _target_ mosquitoes but they certainly do eat them. There’s a few species (like the [Big Brown Bat](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_brown_bat)) that target larger insects, but not all of them, by any means. The [Little Brown Bat](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_brown_bat)eats small flying nocturnal insects, including mosquitoes, and is comfortable flying in vegetation or around the edges of bodies of water. (Fruit bats and the rare vampire bat don’t show up in Minnesota.) Both the Little and Big brown bats are aerial hunters. They are common in Minnesota. A healthy colony of mosquito predators won’t destroy all the mosquitoes in an area but it can make a difference in maintaining a balanced environment. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2011, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kill-the-mosquitoes-green-be-damned/591419/45 "2011-08-06T12:51:38Z")
“Big Brown Bat”, “Little Brown Bat”? They really let their imaginations run wild when they named these things didn’t they. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2011, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kill-the-mosquitoes-green-be-damned/591419/46 "2011-08-06T15:17:40Z")
> [@Merneith](#): > > … I don’t know what kind of bats you have up in Minnesota… Calm. Bland. Polite. In a word, nice. ---
**Author:** ![Folacin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/folacin/32/3195_2.png) [@Folacin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folacin)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2011, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kill-the-mosquitoes-green-be-damned/591419/47 "2011-08-06T16:31:17Z")
> [@Merneith](#): > > I don’t know what kind of bats you have up in Minnesota. About average, [it looks like](http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/team/_/stat/batting/sort/avg/order/true)- the Twins are 19 out of 30. They drop to 27 if you use OPS. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2011, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kill-the-mosquitoes-green-be-damned/591419/48 "2011-08-06T16:59:30Z")
Go Twins! Take the Vikings with you! But, I digress. The bat idea is suitably organic, and therefore appealing. But first and foremost, I want them dead. If I could also hear shrill screams of mosquito agony, so much the better. But dead. ---
**Author:** ![DorkVader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/73ab20/32.png) [@DorkVader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DorkVader)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2011, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kill-the-mosquitoes-green-be-damned/591419/49 "2011-08-07T00:08:23Z")
have you tried gasoline and styrene? maybe with the sound track to “apocalypse now” playing on the stereo or something to set the mood. maybe have the fire dept. on speed dial just in case. no I am NOT advocating arson, just trying to help out and napalm was mentioned earlier… ---
**Author:** ![Serenata67](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/serenata67/32/10646_2.png) [@Serenata67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Serenata67)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2011, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kill-the-mosquitoes-green-be-damned/591419/50 "2011-08-07T06:21:53Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > _Kill the mosquitos! > Kill the mosquitos! > Kill the mosQUItos! > Green be damned!_ > > Sorry. I just heard _The Ride of the Valkyries_ when I read the thread title. Thanks. Now I’ll be singing this while treating my backyard with bug stuff. We’re building a fence next weekend and I’ll be using some sort of bug killing stuff beforehand. But I’ll be singing this. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kill-the-mosquitoes-green-be-damned/591419.md?page=2)