Question

Why do female Anopheles mosquitoes feed on human blood?

Answer 1

Hint: Female anopheles are generally yellowish in colour and one can easily identify them by looking. They feed on the blood to get the nourishment needed for their growth and development.

Complete answer:
Male mosquitoes feed on nectar or on plant feed for deriving nourishment but when we talk about female anopheles they feed on blood, usually of humans or animals. Female mosquitoes have to develop their egg and larva and for them, they have to derive nourishment and protein that they usually get from the blood of the human.

We all know that the physiology of plants is different from male mosquitoes. When we talk about female
Mosquitoes have mouthparts specialised for bloodsucking. The blood contains protein which is generally needed by mosquitoes for the development of their eggs. The developing embryo inside the egg requires amino acids for their nourishment; the blood usually works as amino acid support to develop embryos. On the other hand, when we talk about male mosquitoes they do not have to develop eggs, they only need reproduction for which they feed on plants. In addition, during hot summer days, they drink blood to quench their thirst and to get rehydrated they bite more as they are short of water content in their body.

Female anopheles mosquito mouth apparatus contains two styles of proboscis for slicing the skin on humans. They create holes to collect the blood from blood vessels by inserting their proboscis into the skin hole. If they find blood vessels on the first attempt they will start collecting the blood but if they fail to do so then they will pull back their proboscis and try it from a different angle. They create the hole on the same blood vessel but on different angles. Proboscis contains different tubes from where they secrete saliva. The saliva of mosquitoes contains an anti-inflammatory enzyme that prevents blood from clotting during the collection of blood and an anti-coagulation enzyme that prevents irritation on the skin during the collection of blood.

Note: Female anopheles mosquitoes are a vector to a disease named plasmodium, which is responsible for spreading a disease called malaria. Plasmodium needs two hosts for completing its life cycle and they have two phases in their lifecycle. One is the sexual reproduction phase while another is an asexual phase. They complete their sexual phase in female anopheles while their asexual phase takes place in humans. Anopheles is termed as the primary host and human beings as a secondary host.