Abstract
YELLOW fever mosquitoes (Aedes aegypti) can be guided with great precision to a small target (such as a cylinder 2.5 cm in diameter by 5 cm long) by warm moist convection currents1,2. When the experiment was repeated with malaria mosquitoes (Anopheles quadrimaculatus), no alightments could be secured on these small targets, but when the observer's arm was introduced into the observation chamber it was attacked heavily. Observations like this no doubt account for the common opinion that the skin releases a specific chemical attractant. However, when the attractiveness of the arm was compared with that of a 750-ml. cylindrical glass vessel filled with water at about 35° C and wrapped in moist filter paper, there appeared to be no substantial difference in the number of Anopheles mosquitoes alighting on the two targets.
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References
Wright, R. H., and Kellogg, F. E., Nature, 194, 402 (1962).
Wright, R. H., and Kellogg, F. E., Nature, 195, 404 (1962).
Kellogg, F. E., and Wright, R. H., Canad. Entomologist, 94, 486 (1962).
Muirhead-Thomson, R. C., Mosquito Behaviour in Relation to Malaria Transmission and Control in the Tropics (E. Arnold and Co., London, 1951).
Muirhead-Thomson, R. C., Brit Med. J., i, 1114 (1951).
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WRIGHT, R., KELLOGG, F. Host Size as a Factor in the Attraction of Malaria Mosquitoes. Nature 202, 321–322 (1964). https://doi.org/10.1038/202321a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/202321a0
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