Helping discover how to eradicate mosquito-borne illness…
These efforts, published in Scientific Reports, not only yielded the discovery of a new mode of drinking in mosquitoes, but they could also answer a fundamental question of insect morphology: Why do some insects that drink liquid have two pumps in their heads, while others have only one? “We found that these two pumps in the mosquito’s head allow for a secondary ‘burst mode’ of feeding,” said Jake Socha, associate professor in the department of biomedical engineering and mechanics at Virginia Tech and a senior author of the study. “This burst mode involves a single, large-volume intake of fluid, which is something that had never been observed before. It potentially gives an insect with two pumps more options and allows for multi-modal feeding, as well as functional flexibility.”
