Feeding preferences of blood-sucking insects

Abstract

Blood-sucking insects feed from a range of different host animals. For obvious and often painful reasons, we are aware of the fact that many of them feed from mammals, but many other host animals are also exploited including birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish, and even insects, arachnids and annelids (Hocking 1971). Any one insect does not feed equally well from all of these potential resources; it displays host choice. For some insects, particularly some permanent ectoparasites, the host chosen may be very specific; occasionally, for example human lice, just a single species. For other blood-sucking insects host choice is clearly not so restricted as introduced exotic hosts quickly become incorporated into the diet of local blood-sucking insects. Let us consider what is meant by host choice. In its main sense it denotes the species of host animal or animals from which a blood-sucking insect obtains its blood meals, but host choice can go beyond the particular species of host chosen. Insects often choose to feed on particular individuals from among the preferred species, which may well have implications for disease transmission (Burkot 1988).