THE BLOOD-FEEDING HABITS OF AEDES SOLLICITANS (WALKER) IN RELATION TOEASTERN EQUINE ENCEPHALITIS-VIRUS IN COASTAL AREAS OF NEW-JERSEY .2. RESULTS OF EXPERIMENTS WITH CAGED MOSQUITOS AND THE EFFECTS OF TEMPERATURE AND PHYSIOLOGICAL AGE ON HOST SELECTION

Because of the extremely low incidence of avian feedings reported from field collected Aedes sollicitans (Walker), host-seeking mosquitoes w ere collected in the field, placed into outdoor cages and offered a re strained bird (Japanese quail) and restrained mammal (guinea pig) to d etermine if the species would accept or reject an avian host. No signi ficant difference in feeding response was observed between groups of m osquitoes offered only the bird or the mammal. A majority of the mosqu itoes accepted. the host that was offered suggesting that Ae. sollicit ans is an opportunistic blood-feeder rather than a fixed mammalophilic species. When mosquitoes were offered a choice of a mammal or bird, o ne-third of the mosquitoes accepted the bird as the blood-meal host wh en the mammal was present as an alternative. Physiological age dissect ions showed that both nulliparous and parous mosquitoes fed preferenti ally on the mammalian host but significantly more parous mosquitoes ac cepted the guinea pig when a choice was available. Reduced temperature s decreased the number of mosquitoes that attempted to blood-feed unde r laboratory conditions but did not alter host selection in these test s. Results are discussed in relation to. acquisition of eastern equine encephalitis virus and the role of Ae. sollicitans as an epidemic vec tor of the disease.