Abstract

Doc number: 326

Abstract

Background: Biting midges are hematophagus ectoparasites of insects, humans and other animals. Culicoides (Trithicoides ) anophelis Edwards1922 is a predator of engorged mosquitoes.

Findings: In a field trip of wild mosquito collections, C. anophelis was found on two Anopheles mosquitoes. One mosquito with a midge clinging onto its abdomen was caught on video demonstrating the act of the midge taking blood from the engorged mosquito Anopheles vagus. The midge C. anophelis has a broad host range. Documented in the literature, the midge has been found in various mosquito species in the genera Anopheles, Culex , Aedes and Armigeres .

Conclusions: A video clip was presented demonstrating a midge taking blood from an engorged mosquito. The host promiscuity of C. anophelis raises a concern about its potential as a mechanic or biological vector to spread viruses among mosquito populations.

Details

Title
A video clip of the biting midge Culicoides anophelis ingesting blood from an engorged Anopheles mosquito in Hainan, China
Author
Ma, Yajun; Xu, Jiannong; Yang, Zhenzhou; Wang, Xiaohua; Lin, Zhongling; Zhao, Wei; Wang, Yan; Li, Xiangyu; Shi, Hua
Publication year
2013
Publication date
2013
Publisher
BioMed Central
e-ISSN
1756-3305
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1186/1756-3305-6-326
ProQuest document ID
1459801718
Copyright
© 2013 Ma et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.