Artificial Feeding of Culicoides nubeculosus in the Laboratory

Abstract

ALTHOUGH the normal hosts of Culicoides nubeculosus are horses and cattle, they will readily bite man in the laboratory, and a strain has been maintained in this way; but as the numbers increased it became essential to devise a method by which they might be fed artificially. At 20° C., the temperature at which the strain is kept, the females will take their first blood meal three days after emergence, will oviposit two to three days later and require a further blood meal before they will oviposit again. The duration of the life-cycle is four to five weeks.