|  Only female mosquitoes require
a blood meal 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 (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
are the only mosquitoes
which transmit malaria to man. |
