Scholars have attributed the name Mosqueiro to a corruption of the native Tupinambá word moqueio, which referred to the local practice of smoking meat and fish.

It was originally a modest inn and restaurant of wood construction, dating from the heyday of the rubber plantation industry in the late nineteenth to early twentieth centuries.

[1] The Sebastião Rabelo de Oliveira Bridge, at a length of 1,430 m (4,690 ft),[citation needed] connects Mosqueiro with the mainland.

The Brazilian Ministry of the Environment has approved an investment of R$200,000 (approximately US$90,000 as of 2014[update]) in physical infrastructure, including a pier, administrative building, and research center.

[3] In June 2011, an amphibian identified as belonging to the species Atretochoana eiselti was photographed near Praia de Marahú, on the island of Mosqueiro.