Abstract
IT now appears to be established1–6 that blood-sucking arthropods feed, in the main, either from the lumen of a blood vessel or from a blood pool resulting from the laceration of blood vessels. Occasionally an insect which is a vessel feeder will take part of its nourishment from a blood pool; but, except for the mosquito, this appears to be of unusual occurrence. In vivo observations on non-sensitized hosts have shown that a considerable number of argasid and ixodid ticks, at least one horsefly and the tsetse fly are pool feeders, while several fleas, three species of triatomine bugs and the bed-bug are vessel feeders. The present consensus of opinion is that the mosquito is largely a vessel feeder, although Gordon et al.1 give reasons for believing that a proportion, at least, of the insect's blood meal is derived from haemorrhages formed in the tissues.
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References
Lavoipierre, M. M. J., Dickerson, G., and Gordon, R. M., Ann. Trop. Med. Parasitol., 53, 235 (1959).
Dickerson, G., and Lavoipierre, M. M. J., Ann. Trop. Med. Parasitol., 53, 347 (1959).
Dickerson, G., and Lavoipierre, M. M. J., Ann. Med. Parasitol., 53, 465 (1959).
Lavoipierre, M. M. J., and Hamachi, M., Nature, 192, 998 (1962).
Gregson, J. D., Acta Trop., Basle, 17, 48 (1960).
Sutton, E., and Arthur, D. R., Symp. Zool. Soc., Lond., 6, 223 (1962).
Zweifach, B. W., Sci. Amer., 200, 54 (1959).
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LAVOIPIERRE, M. Feeding Mechanism of Blood-sucking Arthropods. Nature 208, 302–303 (1965). https://doi.org/10.1038/208302a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/208302a0
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