ABSTRACT
Hosts give off an odour plume consisting of a variety of chemicals and pulsed carbon dioxide. When they encounter the odour plume, mosquitoes turn towards it. If they leave the plume they make turning movements until they find it again. A single host is located from approximately 30 m away. Different hosts have different qualities of blood – corpuscle size differs between different animals as well as chemical constituents. This means that for the same amount of blood from different hosts, different numbers of eggs will be produced. Ochlerotatus cantans, a crepuscular biter, resting in woods during the day in England, attacked a host that arrived into the woods. During feeding, as a result of the metabolic processes involved, a mosquito may produce volatile compounds. The Anopheles mosquito not only sucks up blood but also injects parasites during the bite when feeding. It also injects a cocktail of bioactive molecules including enzymes in the saliva.
