Thursday 8 August 2013

Video of the Day : Mosquito Biting from the Inside

As you can see in the video below  the mouth parts contain multiple parts that diverge once entering flesh. Four of these — a pair of mandibles and a pair of maxillae — are thin filaments that help to pierce the skin  and the main brown filament is made up of two parallel tubes: a hypopharynx, which emits saliva, and a labrum, which pumps blood back up.
The video was made with a microscope inserted into the skin of an an anesthetized mouse, which was then fed upon by malaria-infected mosquitoes. You can see the mosquito searching around before finally hitting a vein. 

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