Interesting facts about the structure of mosquitoes
Content
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- Mosquito head structure
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- Mosquito anatomy
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- Mosquito structure
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- Mosquito life cycle
If you look closely, everyone is so bored mosquitoes turn out to be very interesting insects. The bloodsucker who is not representing anything special actually has a rather complex structure of the body and internal organs. There are many types of these insects, some of which do not pose a danger to humans: large centipedes, chimes mosquitoes. Part of the insect is carriers of dangerous diseases. But all species have a similar body structure. All about mosquitoes still do not know even scientists.
Mosquito anatomy
Although about habits, lifestyle and breeding mosquitoes Biologists still know enough, but how the mosquito works is already well known. It turned out that such a "primitive" creature already has almost all the internal organs that higher mammals have.
The morphological description of mosquitoes is similar. All insects of this family have a thin body, the length of which varies depending on the species and can be from 4 to 14 mm. All mosquitoes have long legs and a pair of transparent narrow wings. Wingspan also depending on the type can be from 5 mm to 3 cm. The main types of painting:
- yellow;
- Gray;
- brown.
Among the mosquitoes come across species with a black or green color.
Body structure
The mosquito consists of the head, chest and abdomen. The insect chest is wider than the abdomen consisting of 10 segments. A mosquito has 3 pairs of paws attached to the chest.
On a note!
After feeding, the abdomen swells, becoming wider than the breast.
Head
On the head are:
- faceted eyes;
- antennae antenna;
- oral apparatus.
The faceted device of the eye provides the bloodsucker with a circular view and helps to avoid danger. The vision of mosquitoes is infrared, so they perfectly see the approaching danger in the form of a palm.
Antennae consist of 15 segments, the first of them are rather wide. The first segment is attached directly to the head. In the second, there is the so-called Johnston organ, which is supposedly acting as a mosquito ear.
Interesting!
In mosquitoes, the female from the male is most easily distinguished by the structure of the antennae.
Segments following the first two are called a scourge. The pommel segments of the female have almost the same cylindrical shape. On them are located a few short hairs. The male segments of the scourge are conic, and the hairs are longer and thicker. This is noticeable even without a microscope, since the male antennae seem fluffy. Since the structure of the mosquito has not yet been fully studied even today, it is assumed that the antennae serve as mosquitoes for analyzing the movement of air and partially replace the nose that they are missing.
Mouthpiece mosquito piercing-sucking type. It consists of 3 pairs of sharp needles, covered with a flexible cover. 2 pairs are stilettos.Extreme ones are also equipped with a “nail file” to facilitate piercing the skin. There are also chitinous setae that perform the role mosquito teeth. The inner pair is a hollow tube, through one of which the insect drinks blood, and through the other it injects its poison. A flexible case has no other function than protecting the trunk of mosquitoes from damage.
On a note!
But such a complex device has only a female's proboscis. The oral apparatus of the male is underdeveloped, because of which he can eat exclusively the nectar of flowers.
With a very small head, the brain of a mosquito is large enough for an insect, but it is formed by connecting two longitudinal nerve trunks. The trunks run parallel to each other along the lower surface of the chest and abdomen, connecting in the head above the throat. The main brain complement the ganglia. These are large ganglia, located in each segment of the mosquito's chest and its abdomen. It is the ganglia that coordinate the work of all organs of the insect. From these nerve nodes to the organs, nerve endings diverge.
Chest
It looks like a single array, but in fact consists of 3 unevenly developed segments:
- prothorax;
- moderate chest;
- hilar chest
The middle part is most strongly developed, to which the wings of the mosquito are attached. She carries all the flying muscles.
The long neck of the insect is formed by the prothorax. The average is responsible for the possibility of a bloodsucker to flight and breathing. It contains the anterior spiracle of a mosquito. The pronotum is relatively poorly developed. Its main purpose is to provide breathing. It is located posterior spiracle.
The paws of the mosquito are attached to the chest segments. There are 3 pairs of them by the number of segments. Each foot has 5 segments. The latter is equipped with a sucker and claws, allowing the insect to stay on vertical surfaces and "hang upside down" on the ceiling.
Interesting!
The legs of a mosquito are longer than the body, and the back pair is particularly long. Why an insect such a device, similar to the structure of the strider's paws, is not clear. But it can be an atavism.
The wings of the bloodsucker once was 4. Today there is only one pair of workers left. From the second pair only rudiments-zhuzzhaltsy remained, due to which females publish their own characteristic squeak.
Interesting!
Males do not make sounds.
Wing - transparent oval-elongated plate, consisting of frame veins and membranes between them.The wings are covered with small scales. Most of the scales are transparent. But there are bloodsuckers with painted scales. In this case, a cluster of colored scales forms a spot. In the "green" and "black" colors such stains are folded into a pattern.
Abdomen
Consists of 10 segments. The internal structure of the abdomen is more complicated than just a reservoir for drunk blood. It contains:
- a significant part of the digestive tract;
- appendages to the digestive tract;
- a heart.
The appendages (goiters) take the place of the main tract while it is empty. When the stomach is filled with blood, the insect releases the goiter from its contents.
Digestive tract
Habitual entrails in mosquitoes begin right from the head. The mouth of the bloodsucker is connected to the foregut, which includes the pharynx, which has two extensions: to the "brain" and after it. The anterior intestine has several appendages: 3 appendages of the esophagus and 2 salivary glands. Neither the anterior intestine nor the esophageal appendages perform a digestive function. The appendages serve the insect to ensure its independence from food and water. These are “food stores” with carbohydrate and water reserves.
When the mosquito needs nutrition, “stocks” enter the stomach, where they begin to digest. The posterior gut consists of a thin and straight. Almost the entire digestive tract is located in the abdomen of a mosquito.
Circulatory system
Insects do not have a closed circulatory system, and blood and lymph are pumped by the heart and diaphragm.
The heart of a mosquito in our usual understanding is missing. It lacks chambers and is a muscular tube located in the abdomen between the 1st and 7th segments. The heart can drive blood from the front end of the insect to the back or vice versa.
On the border with the chest, the heart passes into the aorta, which passes through both anterior sections and opens into the cavity of the head.
Interesting!
The blood of these insects is colorless.
Lifestyle
A mosquito is an insect, without fail going through the development of the aquatic period of life. Mosquitoes have four stages of development:
- Egg.
- Larva.
- Baby doll
- Imago
In all species, the first three stages occur either in the water or in the waterlogged soil on the shore of the reservoirs.
The structure of the larvae
Eggs come out maggots different species differ from each other in the shape of the head. In feeding from the surface of water bodies, the heads are elongated and narrow. When fed with plankton or bottom sediments, the head of the larva will be more developed in width than in length. The predatory has a special head structure, different from the two previous ones.
On the sides of the head of the larvae are the eyes. The mouth, depending on the type of food, may be of a scraping or suction type. In predatory species, the mouth apparatus is adapted for catching and chewing prey. The pectoral plates are fused together. The abdomen consists of 9 segments.
The digestive tract in the larvae is almost a straight tube. Food digestion occurs in the middle section of the intestine. The digestive tract is supplemented by a pair of salivary glands and intestinal appendages.
Baby doll
The developed larva enters the next stage: pupation. A dolly is lighter than water due to the large number of air chambers. At this time, already almost formed small mosquitoes are most at risk, since they are a helpless food for fish.
The adult insect hatching from the pupa dries out and sets off to look for a mate for breeding.
Breeding
Mosquitoes feed nectar of flowers. Even females. But females for a successful and abundant egg-laying blood is needed. This is what causes their “bloodthirstiness”.
The female of the common mosquito (piskun) attracts the male to itself with a characteristic sound. It is for this that she left the halter. It does not buzz, but it squeaks solely because of its size. Too small wings can not make a bass buzz. If there is a squeak in the swarm of mosquitoes, you can be sure that there are also bloodthirsty females there.
To tell everything about mosquitoes, it has not yet been possible even to scientists when writing dissertations. However, many interesting facts about mosquitoes and the general idea of how a bloodsucker does not allow to sleep, and why he doesn’t allow his squeak to sleep, you can get it.
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