Host Preference of Blood Feeding Mosquitoes in Rural Areas of Southern Tamil Nadu, India

Mosquitoes use plant sugars and vertebrate blood as nutritional resources. When searching for blood hosts, some mosquitoes express preferential behavior for selected species. To control the outbreak of mosquito borne diseases it is necessary to observe their multiple host preference behavior which enables us to know their main host. The study was conducted in selected rural areas of Virudhunagar and Tirunelveli districts, Southern Tamil Nadu, India. The study period was one year from January 2014 to December 2014. The mosquitoes have been collected by man landing method to know their blood feeding behavior. The agar gel diffusion technique was used to identify the feeding pattern or host preference behavior exhibited by mosquitoes. Totally ten species have been collected in which Aedes aegypti, Aedes albopictus, Aedes vittatus, Anopheles barbirostris, Armigeres subalbatus and Culex tritaeniorhynchus were preferred to feed on human indicating anthropophilic pattern and Anopheles subpictus, Culex gelidus, Culex quinquefasciatus and Mansonia uniformis showed predominantly zoophilic pattern that feed more on animals than humans.