Feeding Adult Mosquitoes on Solid Sugars

Abstract

THAT mosquitoes may feed on flowers and sources of food other than blood has been observed many times. Notable among these observations are those of Wesenberg-Lund¹, Haeger², West and Jenkins³, and Sandholm and Price⁴. Mosquitoes which visit flowers in greatest numbers are various species of Aedes. According to most of the observations recorded, the food consumed is liquid or semi-liquid. The only reference to indicate that mosquitoes may be able to feed on dry food was found in a paper by Downs and Arizmendi⁵ on colonization of Mexican anophelines. These two authors substituted powdered sugar for honey solutions which they normally supplied to the colonies and noted that females more readily took blood after having fed on powdered sugar. They did not further elaborate on this part of their work, and there was no mention of how the powdered sugar was presented to the mosquitoes.