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the journal Current Biology
Being a mosquito can really suck. Not only do you have to gulp down your food because your dinner can turn around and swat you if you're not fast enough, but a bellyful of hot blood can really do a number on your little body, which prefers to keep things cool. So how do feeding skeeters keep from overheating? They take advantage of evaporation. That's according to a study in the journal Current Biology. Insects depend on the environment to regulate their body temperatures. But too much heat can be bad for their health. That's a serious problem when your meals consist of hot, fresh animal blood. The solution, it seems, is to use a drop of your dinner to cool you down. Like sweat, only blood. Scientists used a thermal camera to watch mosquitos eat. And they found that mosquitoes that excrete, and then hang onto, a single bead of blood while feeding have bodies a couple degrees cooler than those that don't. Disrupting this sacrificial blood cooling system could provide a new strategy for controlling mosquitoes, and the diseases they spread. Because if a skeeter can't secrete, its next supper could be its last.
做一只蚊子可真是讓人不愉快。不僅是因為你必須一口吞掉食物:如果你的動作不快的話,你的晚餐可能馬上就轉(zhuǎn)身溜掉了或者你還得挨一巴掌,而且還因為對于喜歡涼爽的你來講,一肚子的熱血還真夠受的~~ 所以,如何既享受美味又不至于讓自己也因熱血而沸騰呢?它們巧妙地利用了蒸發(fā)散熱原理。這是根據(jù)《當(dāng)代生物學(xué)》雜志上的一項研究得出的結(jié)論。 昆蟲一般是依靠周圍環(huán)境來調(diào)整自己的體溫。但是過熱也會傷害到其自身健康。倘若你的食物恰好是新鮮的動物血的話,那這還真是一個比較嚴(yán)重的大問題啊。看來,也只有靠損失一滴晚餐這個辦法才能使你降溫了。就像是其它動物出汗降溫,只不過蚊子使用的是血~~ 科學(xué)家們用熱感照相機來觀察蚊子進(jìn)食。他們發(fā)現(xiàn)蚊子若先滲出一滴血然后再繼續(xù)吸食的話,體溫會比不這么做低幾度。 干擾這個采血冷卻系統(tǒng)可以提供給我們一個新的策略來控制蚊子以及它們傳播的疾病。因為如果小蚊子們不能先分泌血滴提供降溫的話,那么它們下一頓也許就是最后的晚餐了~~ —Karen Hopkin ---------------------------by hyjtb