Communication process is said to be complete only when the receiver is able to decode and comprehend the conveyed message.
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Due to the complexities in science at times , I try as much as possible to make my article easily comprehensible to the reader, this will facilitate easy asssimilation of the subject matter.
In the context of this article, Vampires of the tropic is referring to mosquitoes because of their natural and habitual nature of sucking and obtaining blood meal from their host, especially the humans in the tropics.
This article aims to fully and comprehensively explain in detail all about mosquitoes, their medical importance, life cycle, how they can transmit the pathogenic organism -plasmodium which causes malaria, their prevention and finally modern approaches to treatment of malaria. It is intended to reach out to both science and non science oriented individuals and I hope to achieve my goal of keeping steemit community apprised of trends in medicals field. More emphasis will laid on the female anopheles mosquito, the chief and most deadly vampire.
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The mosquitoes
Those of Medical importance belong to the sub family Culicinae which is further divided into three tribes - Anophelini, Culicini (Aedes, Culex and Mansonia ) and Megarhini (the giant mosquitoes).
life cycle
They are small slender bodily flies with proboscis (a forward projecting structure for obtaining blood meal). They have different sexes, the males suck nectars of flowers and do not pose any threat to humans, they hardly live for more than a week and their main role is to fertilize the females. they die after fertilizing the female mosquitoes while the female ones especially the female anopheles sucks blood from humans because they need this blood for the maturation of their fertilized egg, though man is not the only source of blood meal. These females remain quiescent for about 2-3 days when they are fully fed for the maturation of their ovary, they remain indoors where they get their blood meal from humans, while the outdoor they rest in sheltered places like under surface of leaf, caves, or cans.
One amazing thing about these females ones is that they die soon after they have laid all the matured eggs provided their is adequate blood meal and breeding places.
After the eggs are laid (usually in hundreds) they may hatch within 24hours depending on the availability of water. That is to say that, the eggs need water to hatch. This explains why during rainy season, you tend to have numerous mosquitoes flying around. If water is not available, these eggs can remain unhatched for weeks or months.
Once the eggs are hatched, the larva are released, these larvae have a stiff hairs and breathing trumpet-like siphon which they use to pierce the surface film of water for gaseous exchange and being aquatic wrigglers ( they are mostly found in water where they breath and feed on microscopic organism ) they undergo further development into the pupa stage which resembles a lobster and finally transforms into the adults.
These final transformation can take 2days to a week depending on the temperature and they can suck blood within twenty four hours after maturation into adult.
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How mosquitoes are attracted to humans
There are some questions that really need answers :
How do these mosquitoes detect humans?
What makes or keeps the blood fluidic in the mosquito and prevents it from clotting?
Can mosquitoes transmit HIV virus?
How do they know we are humans even at night, our location and site to bite so as to obtain blood?
Even as a child while growing up, I kept asking myself the same questions above. These mosquitoes can even go as far as locating that uncovered portion of your body to suck blood, I guess they in dare need of our blood for a purpose, read on and you will find out why.
Mosquitoes mostly bite during the night and are usually active between the late hours of the day from 6:30pm to early morning, 7am and are able to detect and suck blood from humans basically because of four reasons
• Through smell. Just as goats, sheep's and other animals have their unique smell, humans do as well. These unique smell of humans attract them a lot and it explains why when you rub mosquito Repellent creams such as Odomos they do not come near you one bit. Even when with the use of mosquito coil repellent they also do not in any way come close to you.
• Second mechanism is through the gas (carbon dioxide) we release, they have antennae which they use to detect carbon dioxide . As humans we naturally breath out carbon dioxide in exchange for oxygen. These gas attract these mosquitoes a lot to us.
• The third way through which they are attracted to humans is through body heat. Human body naturally is maintained at a temperature range of about 35-37 degree Celsius. These temperature is warm enough to attract mosquitoes and this also explains why during cold nights we tend to be untouchable by these vampires.
• They have antennae that can even detect lactic acid on our skin, a byproduct of muscular exertion. Some also detect humans through body movement and moisture.
A mosquito can "smell" its human blood dinner from a distance of up to 50 kilometres (30 miles) away. Source
