TORONTO -- Do smelly feet and bad breath attract mosquitoes? Answer yes and move ahead three spaces. Do mosquito larvae have eyes? Pass directly to the lily pad if you guessed yes.
Bonus points for changing the water in the bird bath. Demerit points for scratching a bite.
An entomologist's Monopoly-style board game that aims to teach school children about the scourge of the insect world is suddenly a hot commodity as North America prepares for another summer of West Nile virus. It turns out there is more to mosquitoes than reaching for insect repellant.
"The nuisance factor and the disease factor have made mosquitoes a high-profile bug," says Jim McNelly, a New Jersey entomologist who is thrilled the world is finally as enamoured of his subject matter as he is.
The audience is invariably limited for such rarefied knowledge as the details of the mosquito life cycle and how many times a second mosquito wings beat. McNelly's game, however, has crossed into the realm of popular culture. The board game -- Know Mosquitoes, with the "no" highlighted in red -- hit the market just as the deadly West Nile virus began spreading in the New York area in the summer of 1999.
Since then, the American Mosquito Control Association, which helped develop the game with a grant from a national pest-management foundation, has distributed 6,000 copies to schools and health districts in Louisiana, Illinois, Florida, New York and other states with West Nile.
West Nile targets birds, not humans, but is spread to people through mosquitoes that feed on the blood of both. More than 4,000 people have been infected with the disease in the United States and 274 have died. In Canada, more than a dozen people have died, mostly in Ontario.
The mosquito game is dedicated to all "mosquito control, research and surveillance professionals" and is aimed at Grade 4, 5 and 6 pupils.
Players move around the board, answering questions about whether mosquitoes have hair, whether they can kill a horse, whether they really breed in water-logged tires, roof gutters, rice fields and salt water (yes to all of the above). The first player to reach mosquito-control headquarters wins.
There are bonus points for spotting mosquito larvae in a rain puddle and knowing such arcane facts as the number of mosquito species in the world (about 3,000), why mosquitoes buzz and where they spend the winter.
A glossary of terms provides a handy cheat sheet, with definitions of such words as blood meal and pheromones, as well as adulticide (a chemical used to control adult mosquitoes) and spiracle (a breathing hole in the body of an adult insect).
"Interest in the game has increased as West Nile has progressed from the East Coast across the country," said Marty Chomsky of the American Mosquito Control Association, a group of mosquito scientists and researchers that includes many Canadians. Chomsky adds that he is happy to ship the game to Canadian customers as well.
West Nile is expected to reach the West Coast of Canada this year. It has already been found in birds in Ontario and in 200 species of animals, including horses, as far south as El Salvador.
In the United States and Canada, there is such a heightened interest in mosquito control that several universities are expanding their entomology departments, among them Rutgers in New Jersey and Louisiana State. Clark's Mosquito University is a Chicago educational institute dedicated wholly to the study of the family known as Culicidae and its work includes larval surveillance and mosquito trapping. The mosquito association is having trouble finding enough trained professionals to educate people about mosquitoes.
McNelly hopes his game will make a small contribution.
"If you start young, you can change people's habits and prevent mosquitoes from breeding around homes, which is how West Nile spreads."
