Reproductive history of anopheles coustani var tenebrous [Doniz] in the laboratory

ABSTRACT

Field caught Anopheles tenebrosus have been observed to contain few relics on their follicles indicating that they obtained few blood meals. To determine whether these mosquitoes obtains few blood meals or are short lived, we determined the number of gonotrophic cycles for this mosquito. Parental females were used to simulate natural population. We found that these mosquitoes could produce up to 8 gonotrophic cycles, indicating that the field observations is due to limited longevity. In addition, fecundity was maximal initially and decreased with subsequent gonotrophic cycles. Some females required two blood meals to develop a batch of eggs this did not appear to be correlated with the size of the blood meal