Male vs Female Mosquito
Mosquitoes are so notorious for their nuisance caused by itchy bites on the skin and the dangerous diseases they spread. However, both males and females are punished for their notoriety, yet only one of them is responsible for that. On the other hand, it is very difficult to identify the females from male mosquitoes with the naked eye, and the need of a magnifying glass is essential to observe the distinguishing features. However, the behaviours are important to consider, as those cater some important differences between males and females.
Male Mosquito
Male mosquitoes are the innocent ones of their type, as they are completely herbivorous or feed on plant sap. Some references state that male mosquitoes feed on sweet fruit juices and flower nectar, like butterflies and honeybees; hence, they are not bloodsuckers. The plant sap feeders have piercing and sucking mouthparts to penetrate their rostrum to the phloem of the plants. However, the males of some mosquito species have mouthparts adapted for drinking. Male’s sensory organs have been adapted to find their mates and sense the presence of sugary juices and tender plants. Their long and feathery antennae are useful for them to find females to mate. Finding a mate for breeding is very important during their very short lifespan of 10 – 14 days. Since it is a short stay for the males, they dump all the sperms at once into a female during mating, and that is the only chance they get to mate with a female. Male mosquitoes are not strong flyers and live a very humble lifestyle during their short stay.
Female Mosquito
Females are the dangerous and nuisance members of the mosquitoes, as they being bloodsuckers of warm-blooded animals. They suck blood to provide nutrition for the development of eggs. The female stores the ejected sperms of the mated male inside her body, and fertilizes those time to time with her ova. With a good meal of blood, one female mosquito can live for about two weeks without feeding, and she provides nutrition for the eggs meanwhile. The developed eggs are released; next meal of blood is taken again and does the same until the sperm storage is over. Females can live for about 100 days (more than three months) in this mode of life. Their piercing and sucking mouthparts are long, sharp, and strong, so that they can assure the blood meal from a host. They secrete their saliva into the host blood after the insertion of the rostrum into the skin, so that the blood will not coagulate due to the rupture of the vein. With the saliva of the female mosquito, many disease causing microorganisms are transferred into the body of the host. Dengue, malaria, and elephantiasis are some of those diseases. The presence of short hairs on their antennae is useful for them to find warm-blooded animals such as mammals and birds. In addition, they are strong in flight with about 200 metres in the air can be covered without resting at once. Furthermore, the presence of the sensory hairs cater them the ability to escape when they are being attacked. Since the female is the outgoing member of the mosquitoes, their prevalence is higher in the environment than the males; hence, almost all the mosquitoes that we encounter are females.
What is the difference between Male and Female Mosquito?
• Males are harmless for humans, but females are always harmful.
• Males feed on plant saps while females feed on blood of birds and mammals.
• Females have a considerably longer lifespan than males.
• Females have longer and sharper mouthparts than the males.
• Antennae are long and feathery in males while those are short hairs in females.
• Females are disease agents but not the males.
• Prevalence of the females in the environment is higher than the males.