Only female mosquitoes bite animals in order to take a blood meal. Male mosquitoes do not bite, but feed on the nectar of flowers.
Aedes mosquitoes are painful and persistent biters, attacking during daylight hours. They prefer to bite mammals like humans. Aedes mosquitoes are strong fliers and are known to fly many miles from their breeding sources.
Culex mosquitoes are painful and persistent biters also, but prefer to attack at dusk and after dark, and readily enter dwellings for blood meals. Domestic and wild birds are preferred over man, cows, and horses. Culex tarsalis is known to transmit encephalitis (sleeping sickness) to man and horses. Culex are generally weak fliers and do not move far from home, although they have been known to fly up to two miles.
Culex mosquitoes usually live only a few weeks during the warm summer months. Those females which emerge in late summer search for sheltered areas where they "hibernate" until spring. Warm weather brings her out in search of the preferred environment in which to lay her eggs.
Culiseta mosquitoes are moderately aggressive biters, attacking in the evening hours or in shade during the day.
Anopheles mosquitoes are the only mosquito which transmits malaria to man.