Florida’s unique mosquito education centre delights kids

OF all the creatures associated with Florida — alligators, flamingos, manatees — possibly the most consequential doesn’t show up in tourism ads or on travel websites.

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Did you know that the mosquito prompted the invention of air conditioning? For that reason alone, it deserves some kind of special recognition. A statue, maybe? A proclamation? How about a museum?

St. Johns County in northeast Florida has seen fit to acknowledge the noxious insect with all three.

And now an eight-foot tall bronze statue of a fierce looking Aedes aegypti stands watch at the entrance to the Disease Vector Education Center - a.k.a. the mosquito museum, the only one of its kind in the US. The museum sparked some outcry about public funding, but the community has become more accepting of it.

Despite its ponderous official name, the museum is a colorful, trippy delight: Outside is a mosquito-themed playground, complete with a sliding board designed to look like oversize versions of common mosquito hiding spots — a barrel of water on a stack of old tires. There’s a climbing block made from a concrete culvert (prime mosquito breeding grounds), and a dragonfly-shaped riding toy with a sign that reads, “Dragonflies are good to have around because baby dragonflies eat baby mosquitoes.”

The education center is ostensibly aimed at children but also geared toward teaching adults a little more about the No. 1 insect killer of humankind.