Blog post 2

 While the mosquito is similar to other “flies” in most of its anatomy, there are a few special features that set it apart. The first being veins that they have on their wings and the second is the proboscis which is the structure that represents the “mouth” of the mosquito. The proboscis contains six microtubules that are used to suck the blood out of their victims.  Two of the tubules are maxillae which help the mosquito to pierce through our skin kind of like a saw into our skin. Then after the sawing comes the mandibles which are like clamps to hold the pesky skin apart while the fifth tubule called a “labum” is used to pierce the blood vessel. The labum is actually super useful to them as it serves multiple purposes one being that it acts as a straw to suck blood and that it has sensors like a GPS to find and track our blood vessels. The final tubule is the hypo thorax which excretes the mosquito saliva that keeps our blood from clotting in their straw. The bad news for us is that this saliva is actually what causes us irritation and harmful diseases that we are familiar with. It’s amazing how well adapted for sucking blood the mosquito is, which is very important because the blood from you actually allows the female mosquitos to develop eggs and mature. I bet you never thought of the fact you might be helping a family of mosquitos grow. Evolutionary the proboscis is present in other creatures such as moths and adult butterflies, mostly for plant nectar feeding but mosquitos are the only insects to have such a complicated structure and use their proboscis to feed on blood. They are the villain that gives good insects like butterflies a bad name but they did help with research in hypodermic needles so that is a plus.

Citations: “NPR Choice Page”. Npr.Org, 2017, https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/06/07/480653821/watch-mosquitoes-use-6-needles-to-suck-your-blood.

This image shows a close up of the mosquito proboscis, see if you can identify which tubule is which using my description. The citation for this image is present in its alt text.