Malaria infection is initiated when mosquitoes inoculate sporozoites into the skin. Sporozoites are actively motile and must exit the inoculation site to go to the liver where they initiate the next stage of infection. Little is known about how the parasite interacts with the host at the dermal inoculation site. I will briefly discuss the host’s innate immune response to the parasite and recent findings on sporozoite motility which is likely critical to escape this response.