As if ancestry - suck in louse were n’t nasty enough , Australian researchers have name an offset of the Culex molestus mosquito that has accommodate to urban surroundings , engender and lurking about in sinister crevices and pipes found beneath cities . And unlike other mosquitoes , this one can consist its eggs before ask its first blood fete .
Most metal money of mosquitoes breed in pond , pools , or wetland , but the variant of a mosquito introduced to Australia in the forties has adapted to sprightliness underground , exploiting septic tanks and used stormwater pipework for its reproductive needs . Thediscovery , which was made by Cameron Webb fromSydney Medical School , has prompted calls for the redesign of water storage systems . The fear is that , quite unknowingly , urban planners are make raw opportunity for mosquitos to procreate – a development that could result in not just the spreading of opportunistic mosquitoes , but diseases as well .
The find also register the howling resiliency exhibited by mosquito when it comes to adapting to changing environment . Mosquitoes have been obtain in a panoptic range of ecological niches , including coastal rock pool and alpine snowmelt pool .
According to Webb , the mosquito was unmanageable to trace . He and his squad had to snoop around stormwater drain and other contaminated structures for two year to do their investigations . But when they contact toilet stop in urban parklands , they off the jackpot . Disused septic tanks seem to be the maternity hospital ward of choice for this particular mosquito .
What the researchers also discovered was that this offshoot of Culex molestus , unlike other mosquitoes , can lay a batch of orchis prior to having a lineage meal . Most mosquitoes need blood to train their ball , but the females of this species can lay an entire tidy sum by using nutrients stack away earlier in its aliveness cycle per second – a process that ’s know as autogenesis .
This adaptation is likely the result of the mosquito having to distribute with a dearth of suited animals to banquet upon given its subterraneous stomping grounds . The biological trick also allows it to live and cover all - twelvemonth circle . Webb conceive this is the only Australian species that can do this .
Underground mosquitoes are n’t a new phenomenon . Back during World War II , a similar form of mosquito made a meal of Londoners hiding underground during the Blitz , what they referred to as the London Underground Mosquito . As if they did n’t have enough to worry about .
The entire bailiwick can be readhere .
Image via Shutterstock.com/Natursports .
BiologyMosquitoesScienceSHUTTERSTOCK
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