Reports are emerging from the Thai capital of Bangkok that a mosquito has died after unsuccessfully trying for hours to bite a man, after which it collapsed and subsequently expired through sheer exhaustion.
Moys Kenwood, an English 'teacher', had been having a shower at his apartment in the city, when he spotted the pesky parasitic flying insect circulating on a speculatory survey of his bathroom.
He quickly dried, and switched his fan to 'maximum power', a measure taken to prevent the mosquito landing anywhere within range of the fan, as they don't care very much for movement.
Next, Kenwood dressed in extremely thick clothing, in order to hamper the mosquito's attempts at inserting its proboscis into his flesh, should it somehow manage to avoid the fans sweeping motion and land on him.
After a nervous couple of hours, during which Kenwood claims he was constantly 'in motion', he retired to bed, completely covering himself with a thick eiderdown, which he also pulled over his head, leaving the unfortunate female mosquito with no option but to wait patiently until the nervous human woke from his slumbers the next morning.
Only then would it be able to take its preferred 'blood meal'.
When Kenwood arose the next day at 6am, however, the first thing he noticed was the dead body of the mosquito on the floor next to the fan. A cursory inspection of the corpse seemed to reveal that the death had occurred after the mosquito had become exhausted in its efforts to bite Kenwood, and was unable to escape the apartment so that it could bite a stray soi dog or some other human victim.
Kenwood told me:
"Nobody likes to see a mosquito die in these circumstances, but the bloody thing was so persistent. I had to take evasive measures, and unfortunately, someone has to suffer. In this case, it was the mozzie. That's how it goes sometimes."
Police are not investigating.
