[ExI] will raise bugs for food

[Gregory Jones]

--- On Thu, 8/5/10, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:
 
>...The tick got the blood from a live human, animal or bird.
The mosquito's sensors would be swamped by all these delicious humans,
animals and birds full of warm blood. It wouldn't even notice the
tick...
 
OK ja, I didn't state the question very clearly.  The experiment would be done under controlled circumstances, where the mosquito(es) and the engorged tick(s) would be in an isolated environment with no other beasts to distract them and to make it easier to photograph the ensuing hilarity.  A small glass bell might work, or a plexiglass cube about 5 cm on a side.
 
>...The female mosquito proboscis (only females bite) is designed to go
into soft mammal flesh, so anything with a hard shell (tick?) would be
ignored...

Hmmm, disagree.  Ticks do not have shells, but you might be right that the mosquito cannot penetrate whatever it is the ticks do have.  It is tough material, but I would not describe it as a shell, and it will fail if you pull on an engorged tick incorrectly, splooshing the blood all over the place (please pardon the squick on a Thursday morning.)  {8^D  Then I would need the appropriate chemical to apply to the tick to give the mosquito the "bite me here" signal.  I seriously doubt I could compel the tick to bite the mosquito however, even if I managed to constrain the beasts.
 
spike
 
 
 

From: BillK <pharos at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [ExI] will raise bugs for food
To: "ExI chat list" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Date: Thursday, August 5, 2010, 1:56 AM


On 8/5/10, spike  wrote:
> I never did find out if a mosquito will bite a tick.
>
>

In theory, maybe. In practice, very, very unlikely. Just say No.

The tick got the blood from a live human, animal or bird.
The mosquito's sensors would be swamped by all these delicious humans,
animals and birds full of warm blood. It wouldn't even notice the
tick.

The female mosquito proboscis (only females bite) is designed to go
into soft mammal flesh, so anything with a hard shell (tick?) would be
ignored.

See: <http://www.howstuffworks.com/mosquito.htm>


BillK
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