This 2006 image depicted a female Aedes aegypti mosquito as she was obtaining a blood-meal from a human host through her fascicle, which had penetrated the host's skin, and was reddening in color, reflecting the blood’s coloration through this tubular structure. In this case, what would normally be an unsuspecting host was actually the CDC’s biomedical photographer’s own hand, which he’d offered to the hungry mosquito so that she’d alight, and be photographed while feeding. As it filled with blood, the abdomen became distended, stretching the exterior exoskeletal surface, thereby, causing it to become transparent, allowing the collecting blood to become visible as an enlarging intra-abdominal red mass.
Content Providers(s): CDC/ Prof. Frank Hadley Collins, Dir., Cntr. for Global Health and Infectious Diseases, Univ. of Notre Dame