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The Swarming Sex Party: When you walk through a swarm of mosquitoes, you're not just at risk of swallowing a bug, you're crashing a sex party.

The female is drawn to the swarming guys. But after this big buildup, the end might sound depressingly familiar to those of us who look to nature for inspiration.

Once a male and female pair off, it's over in seconds. The female usually ends up pregnant, never wanting to have sex again. And the male often flies away with his sex organ chopped off.

Bug Zappers Don't Work: Forget electronic bug zappers, They merely kill moths and draw more mosquitoes to your backyard than they kill. Ultrasonic sound repellents? They're unproven.

Spielman says at his outdoor events, he uses sprays and oils with DEET. "You should be careful when you apply it," he says. "There are a few reports of people who have gotten neurological damage by grossly overexposing themselves. It's rare."

Citronella candles and some other oils also work.

Do Bugs Bug a Bug Expert?: On a summer night, that annoying buzzing can drive Spielman out of bed with the warnings about West Nile disease running through his head. "I know as much as anyone, the chances of getting it are remote," says the 70-year-old. "But I hear the warnings, too."

Back at work at Harvard University, he's happy to stick his hand in a mosquito cage to let the little critters feed. "I'm immune to a few species," he says. "It doesn't really help when I go to the park, unfortunately — it's a different kind of mosquito there."

But not everyone thinks his job is so thrilling. "My granddaughter thinks what I do is gross," he says. "I tell her you can learn a lot from insects. I'm sure she will."

Buck Wolf is a producer at ABCNEWS.com. The Wolf Files is published Tuesdays and Thursdays. If you want to receive weekly notice when a new column is published, join the e-mail list.