Mosquitoes Essay

Insects are the most abundant species in the world. Some insects are beneficial to other organisms such as bees that act as pollinators for plant to reproduce but there are species of insects that are harmful such as termites and pests that they are not only kill most of crop plants but also harm other organisms and spread the infectious disease. Unlike other insect species, mosquitoes are of the insects that have unique behaviours in reproducing offspring. Mosquitoes are known as carnivorous, blood-sucking insects which they consume blood from their prey in order to survive and reproduce. Olena (2013) reported that this insect species has been existed about 46 million years ago with bloodsucking behaviour. Mosquitoes usually harmless to other organisms but there are some species of mosquitoes carry some viruses and transmit debilitating disease such as malaria and dengue fever that cause fatal to human (Lehane, 2005). The life cycle of this species only requires about two weeks before turn into an adult. Similar to some insects such as butterflies, mosquitoes also undergo complete metamorphosis which has different morphological structures in each stage of mosquitos’ life cycle (Hoffman & Frodsham, 1993). There are four important stages of life cycle in mosquitoes which are laying eggs, development of larvae, formation of pupae, and maturation into adults (refer to Figure 1 in Appendix 1).

Firstly, laying eggs takes place in the first stage of life cycle of mosquito. The eggs are laid by the females of mosquitoes after they have consumed sufficient amount of blood from their hosts. This stage occurs due to the fertilization between oocyte in female mosquito and the spermatozoa from the male mosquito (Clement, 1992). Then, eggs wh...

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...s from plants as their energy sources. Apart from that, Clements (1992) also stated that as the reproduction process occurs after a few days, female mosquitoes start to stimulate their receptors on the antennae to detect body odour and carbon dioxide of the hosts. After mating, the female look for blood meal as it needs extra protein to develop eggs (Renchie & Johnsen, 2007). Most females die before obtaining their second blood meal but some may feed two or three times more (Cadwell, 2011). Several days are needed for female to digest blood and then the male mosquito inseminates spermatozoa, male reproductive cell into female mosquito reproductive organ to fertilize all the eggs. As this mating behaviour has occurred, female mosquitoes start to reproduce new offspring by consume blood from the hosts and the life cycle of mosquitoes is repeated all over again.