Question

The female mosquito is not considered a parasite, although it needs our blood for reproduction. Explain why?

Answer 1

Parasitism is a type of symbiosis, which is present between two organisms, and where the organism which depends on their nutrition is called a parasite and in which this organism lives called as host, whereas in this relation parasite cause harm to the host.

Complete answer:
- Mosquitoes are considered as parasites, generally, mosquitoes have two genders that are males and females.
- Male mosquitoes feed on the nectar of the plants and flowers and they obtain the nutrition from the plant juices.
- Female mosquitoes feed on the blood of the animals, and humans, as they obtain the nutrition from the blood which gets sucked from the person.
- The reason for the different types of nutrition in both mosquitoes is because of differences in the structure of sucking mouthparts.
- In male mosquitoes the mouthparts are rudimentary and the proboscis is blunt, so they cannot prick, rather they can only suck they depend on the nectar of flowers.
- But the mouthparts of the female mosquitoes are well developed and they have sharp proboscis and they can prick the tissue and suck the food. And at the same time, female mosquitoes are the ones that lay eggs, so they need more protein. That is the reason why they feed on blood, as it contains proteins.
- Here mosquitoes do not live in the host or on the host, wherein the parasitism they should live for a long time, and in the parasitism, they should obtain nutrition, but here mosquitoes feed on blood for their reproductive cycle, not mainly for the nutrition.

Note: Mosquitoes act as vectors and where they carry the parasite and if the infected mosquitoes bite the healthy person it causes the diseases and the mosquitoes are the intermediate host for many parasites such as plasmodium.