Mosquito Life Cycle
Only female mosquitoes require a blood meal (protein) and bite animals – warm
or cold blooded – and birds. Stimuli that influence biting (blood feeding)
include a combination of carbon dioxide, temperature, moisture, smell, color and
movement. Male mosquitoes do not bite, but feed on the nectar of flowers or
other suitable sugar source. Acquiring a blood meal, i.e., protein, is essential
for egg production, but mostly both male and female mosquitoes are nectar
feeders. Female Toxorhynchites actually can’t obtain a bloodmeal and are
restricted to a nectar diet. Of those female mosquitoes capable of blood
feeding, human blood meals are seldom first or second choices. Horses, cattle,
smaller mammals and/or birds are preferred.
Aedes and
Ochlerotatus mosquitoes are painful and persistent biters. They search
for a blood meal early in the morning, at dusk (crepuscular feeders) and into
the evening. Some are diurnal (daytime biters) especially on cloudy days and in
shaded areas. They usually do not enter dwellings, and they prefer to bite
mammals like humans. Aedes and Ochlerotatus mosquitoes are
strong fliers and are known to fly many miles from their breeding
sources.
Culex mosquitoes are painful and
persistent biters also, but prefer to attack at dusk and after dark. They
readily enter dwellings for blood meals. Domestic and wild birds usually are
preferred over man, cows, and horses. Culex nigripalpus is known to
transmit St. Louis encephalitis to man in Florida.
Culex mosquitoes are generally weak fliers and do not move far from
home, although they have been known to fly up to two miles. Culex usually live only a
few weeks during the warm summer months. Those females that emerge in late
summer search for sheltered areas where they "hibernate" until spring. Warm
weather brings them out again in search of water on which to lay their
eggs.
Culiseta mosquitoes are moderately
aggressive biters, attacking in the evening hours or in the shade during the
day. Psorophora, Coquillettidia and
Mansonia mosquitoes are becoming more pestiferous as an ever-expanding
human population invades their natural habitats. Anopheles mosquitoes are
persistent biters and the only mosquito which transmits malaria
to man.
from AMCA
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