剑麻Providers: CDC/ Prof. Woodbridge Foster; Prof. Frank H. Collins., photo credit, James Gathany

每年，伦敦国家历史博物馆都会举办年度野生动植物摄影师。从全球各地拍摄的伟大生物的惊人图像，争夺奖品。安大略省的本地人吉尔·威尔顿（Gil Wilzen）参加了2021年比赛的图像。图像一只蚊子blood-feed。但是，这种闪闪发光的紫罗兰昆虫与昆虫学家所熟悉的大多数蚊子不同。个人Sabethes属的虹彩颜色和“毛茸茸”的局势令人震惊，可以在中央和南美洲找到。获奖的照片带领英国广播公司问“Is this the world’s most beautiful mosquito?”

吉尔本人以前研究过昆虫，他一直试图抓住这张蚊子的照片。他是一名小比斯特（Minibeasts）的专业摄影师，在获得这个机会之前，他必须七次返回厄瓜多尔的雨林。为了吸引一名饥饿的女性，他以血液为食。因此，吉尔（Gil）成为野生动植物比赛中为数不多的野生动植物竞赛中的少数成功参赛者之一。

Flaviviruses

虽然令人印象深刻，但拍摄这张照片有风险。这Sabethesmosquitos are poorly understood, but they are known to carry diseases of major risk to human health. Captured specimens of the mosquito have been found to harbour a number of different flaviviruses when analysed. South America is a region where yellow fever is endemic, and indeed experiments conducted in the late 50s demonstrated thatSabethes sp。是在之间有能力的黄热病病毒的媒介rhesus macaques。但是，传输通常很差，许多尝试失败了，因此风险可能很低。无论如何，许多前往南美的旅行者将接种疫苗针对黄热病病毒。

这re is no vaccine or even medicine, however, to protect from St Louis encephalitis virus, another vector-borne pathogen this vector has beenfound to carry in Panama。这disease this virus causes is mostly asymptomatic or mild, but can develop into severe neurologicalsymptoms and result in disability or death。此外Sabethesmosquitoes have been found with the obscure Ilhéus virus, which causesilhéus脑炎。This disease is not often mentioned in the literature, but the virus is considered a pathogen which could threaten to cause epidemics in the future – an emergent disease. The symptoms of infection tend to be mild gastrointestinal or respiratory complaints, but progression to the nervous system can lead to encephalitis. WhetherSabethes sp。can transmit St Louis or Ilhéus encephalitis virus between primates has not been investigated.

Flamboyance beyond appearance

Established as an insect of medical importance, attention shifted to the deep blue leg paddles that both sexes of the mosquito possess. Why doesSabethes运动这些有光泽的附属物？线索来自以下非凡的观察，即在蚊子中独有的观察Sabethesspexhibit courtship behaviours prior to mating. A team at Ohio State University in Colombus consisting of Robert G. Hancock, Woodbridge A. Foster and Wee L. Yeewas the first to documenthow the male mosquito initiates a series of set movements before, and during, copulation. The female mosquito hangs from underneath a surface and waits for males to approach before they engage in this dance, utilising their paddles as part of the maneuver. The discerning female often rejects males during this performance, suggesting that they are assessing their potential mate during the dance.

俄亥俄州队进一步质疑桨是否对于交配过程很重要。在一定是微妙的过程中，每个性别中的一半都消除了桨鳞，然后量化了它们的交配效果。尽管女性在交配程序中等待男性来找男性，并迅速摆脱了大多数求婚者，但无男性无桨的蚊子实际上没有任何问题，可以使女性与控制相比。另一方面，无桨的女性在交配方面的成功大大不那么成功。进一步的挑剔的实验表明，男性蚊子对无桨女性的吸引力大大不那么吸引，很少与她们“对齐”，这是求爱常规的第一阶段。至少对于女性而言，桨似乎是吸引伴侣的性装饰品。进行这个实验，以竞争为弱点的人可以表明，没有他们，男性是否仍然处于不利地位。

这egg trebuchet

对他们独特的外观和求爱表演不满意Sabethes sp在蚊子中也是非凡的。在野外，Sabetheseggs were found in tree cavities filled with water, and with entrances amounting to a small hole. When the female detects a hole, she will secrete an egg onto the tip of her abdomen, and then fling the egg with a jerk of her body. The egg then flies through the air and lands safely inside the cavity. The original entomologist to请注意此行为，，，，Pedro Galindo in Panama, experimented with making the entrance holes smaller and smaller to see how accurate the egg trebuchet was. He found that the mechanism never seemed to miss, so theSabethes sp非常擅长似乎有冒险的策略。

In 2020 the lab of Ricardo Lourenço-de-Oliveira at the Instituto Oswaldo Cruz, Rio de Janeiro, captured this egg slingingwith a high speed camera,illuminating the split-second process in detail.

这y constructed egg traps out of Sapucaia nuts, large round fruits from the same sub-family as the trees which produce Brazil nuts. Although all observations of egg slinging occurred under lab conditions, with lab-reared colonies, this trap has successfully been used in the field to obtainSabethes sp年轻的。这项研究捕获了雌性徘徊在孔周围，挤出鸡蛋的清晰图像，以及腹部和四肢的协调运动以推动鸡蛋前进。

多么独特Sabethes？

This species of mosquito certainly seems to stand out from the crowd; however this ‘crowd’ is made up only of the insects documented up to this point. Michael Weissmann, chief entomologist of Colorado Mosquito Control,问是否there may be more surprises among what hasn’t been studied out in the wilderness; “ For most of the over 3,000 species of mosquitoes identified, hardly anything is known about their biology and behavior. Perhaps there are other unusual stories of mosquito courtship waiting to be discovered in a tropical forest.”

只有确定未来的昆虫学家会有更多惊喜。