Mosquitoes have teeth, although, in reality, and because they are an invertebrate, they can be called denticles. The most common mosquitoes have 47 denticles with which they can pierce the skin to feed.
Mosquitoes bite
The biting suction apparatus of mosquitoes consists of a duct that pierces the skin, which in turn contains a part for the suction of blood. Female mosquitoes of any species are hematophagous, i.e., they are usually the ones that bite.
The males do not. They feed on flower nectar and are rarely seen indoors. The teeth of the midges are distributed on the comb-like suction tube.
Mosquitoes belong to the family Culicidae. This in turn is divided into two subfamilies, the Anophelinae and the Culicinae. Both comprise 41 different genera and more than 3400 different species. As can be seen, there is a great variety of species, some of them so lethal that they make the mosquito the most dangerous animal on the planet.
There are species with different numbers of teeth. The species Culex Acharistus has between 20 and 37 teeth, while Culex Articularis has between 37 and 49, just to mention a few.
The mouthparts of mosquitoes are adapted in the form of very thin needles or stilettos.
These true hypodermic needles can pass through the thickest tissues. The needle with which the females sting, consists of six parts, the epipharyngeal labrum, which is a stylet; and two mandibles, which form the internal stylet. It is followed by the maxillae composing the external stylet; the hypopharynx, which passes inside the salivary canal, and the labium, which contains the entire sucking apparatus.
Females are the most dangerous
Females have better developed this feeding apparatus. When they bite the six elements to suck, they penetrate the skin, leaving only the lip on the outside. At the moment they bite, they inject anticoagulants to be able to suck more. However, they also inject pathogens that they can acquire from a sick person or animal.
In this way, we can affirm that, they are responsible for the contagion of many diseases such as malaria, dengue, yellow fever, Chikukgunya, encephalitis, among others.
Mosquitoes have a very short life span and, depending on the species, varies from 10 days to one month. Females live longer than males, although their life expectancy depends on the season of the year and their diet. Cike other nocturnal insects, mosquitoes have very limited vision. For this reason, they often become disoriented at the sight of an artificial light and fly in circles around it.
