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The reason why only female mosquitoes suck blood

The Reason only Female Mosquito Sucks Blood:

The female mosquito is the only one of the Culicidae family that consumes blood because, unlike other parasitic creatures that survive exclusively on the fluids of living animals, the mosquito only uses blood as nutrition for the development of their eggs. Surviving predominantly on nectar, the female mosquito will only risk parasitic behavior because the protein and iron found in living blood will allow her to lay more eggs and yield stronger young than on a diet of nectar alone. To ensure the largest number fit offspring possible, the mosquito has evolved numerous adaptations that aid it in the location of warm blooded animals. Luckily, artificial chemicals like DEET make it possible to counter these adaptations.

Hematophagy is the animal behavior of parasitically consuming the blood of other organisms. Many insects such as ticks, lice and fleas are hematophags and survive exclusively on diets of bodily fluids drained from hosts. The female mosquito, despite what many people may believe, engages in hematophagia only for the sake of her offspring. Mosquitoes individually survive on nectar, fruit juices, and any other nutritional fluid they can sustain themselves with. All male mosquitoes have evolved without a proboscis (the needle-like appendage that a female mosquito uses to extract blood), and the females will not seek out hosts unless they have had their eggs fertilized first. A female will even develop her eggs on nectar if there are no hosts available to sustain them.

To understand why a mosquito bites, it is important to first understand evolutions naturally occurring cost/benefit calculations in species behavior. The single most important purpose of a female mosquito is to have as many of her offspring survive to sexual maturity and carry on her genetics as possible. Granted, this process on average can take little more than a week for a mosquito, but her behavior will greatly determine how many of her eggs will survive to have eggs of their own. Besides the fitness of the male whose sperm she used to fertilize her eggs, the most important contribution she will make is the amount of nutrition she can invest into her eggs to ensure as many of them hatch into healthy strong larvae as possible.

This balance between cost and benefit comes into play for the female mosquito because parasitic behavior is very dangerous and significantly decreases her chances of surviving


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