![Anus helps save mosquito from hot blood meals | COSMOS magazine
SYDNEY: Cold-blooded mosquitoes can save themselves from overheating when they feed by releasing a drop of ingested blood from their anus. “Insects are very sensitive to temperature and they are mostly unable to regulate it by themselves,” said entomologist Claudio Lazzari from the University of Tours, France, and author of the study. “We asked then, how blood-sucking insects manage the thermal stress arising from quickly ingesting [large] amounts of blood much warmer than the insect itself.”
Extreme changes in temperature, especially overheating, can cause organ failure and destroy important proteins. Many insects have developed ways of regulating their temperature. Bumblebees create heat from the muscles used while flying and hold a droplet of nectar out of their mouthparts to keep their brains from overheating.
When feeding, the Anopheles mosquito held its body perpendicular to the host and released a drop of recently ingested blood from its anus. This drop allowed evaporative cooling to release the heat from the blood meal and lowered the temperature of the body. “
From a perspective of pure basic research, it opens novel research lines on mosquito physiology and on thermoregulatory mechanisms in insects in general,” Lazzari said. “From a more applied point of view, it uncovers novel potential targets for controlling malaria vectors.”](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lybus72ftV1qzdxioo1_400.jpg)
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