This insect, in the opinion of zoologists, is even quite cute. It has an elongated body, long legs and sensitive antennae, belongs to the order Diptera. Just a "cutie", but it's called a malarial mosquito. How dangerous is his bite? We will talk about this later.
Another name for this insect is "anopheles". It is widespread, but the most dangerous species live in the southern regions. They carry not only malaria, but also yellow fever, Japanese encephalitis, dengue fever.
Are common and malarial mosquitoes similar? Why is the latter dangerous? Both species are blood-sucking, but only females drink blood, and males are rather harmless. The appearance is slightly different. Anopheles has dark spots on the wings and when landing, the abdomen is lifted up. Females lay their eggs in stagnant waters, most often in wetlands. There, the larvae live, breathe through peculiar tubes, feed by passing water through themselves and filtering out small particles. When the time comes to hatch, the chrysalis rises to the surface and an adult insect flies out of it.
ThanIs the malarial mosquito dangerous? Bites for animals and humans are quite painful, cause itching, redness and allergies. This is if the mosquito is not infected. If he is infected, the consequences can be very dire, because malaria
refers to diseases that have a high mortality rate. It is caused by microorganisms called plasmodia. The bite of a malarial mosquito contributes to the fact that the causative agent of the disease enters the bloodstream. But Plasmodium not only use Anopheles as a transport, they are an incubator for them. Therefore, the fight against malarial mosquitoes in many countries has been and is being carried out at the state level.
Initially, they could not determine what role the malarial mosquito plays, how dangerous it is for people. It was believed that the cause of the disease was poisonous marsh fumes. And only at the end of the 19th century, the French physician Charles Laveran suggested that the causative agent of infection could be a simple microorganism. Parasitologist Patrick Manson thought about the fact that this "organism" needs to somehow move from person to person. Ronald Ross did find them in Anopheles. So, by global efforts, by the twentieth century, they decided on what a malarial mosquito is, how dangerous it is for humans.
But revealing was not enough, it was necessary to develop a strategy for the fight. The most effective was the drainage of wetlands. This is what they did at the mouth of the Rhine. Now, few people will remember that there was a hotbed of a dangerous infection. That's what they did in the woodsAbkhazia, where eucalyptus trees were planted, which pumped out water from the swamps, small mosquito fish were launched into the rest, they are natural enemies of mosquitoes and feed on their larvae. But there are still enough places on Earth, completely undeveloped, where malaria thrives. This primarily concerns the central regions of Africa and South America, where the most dangerous centers are now located. All tourists should remember that there are no vaccinations against this disease, but you can be saved if you start taking quinine in time.
