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Updated: May 12, 2025
As soon as the wound is made the insect pours out through the tube of the hypopharynx some of the secretion from the salivary glands and then begins to suck up the blood through the hollow labrum into the pharynx and on into the stomach. The mouth-parts of the male differ in some important respects from those of the female.
The hypopharynx is united to the labium, the mandibles are wanting and the maxillæ are very much reduced so that the insect is unable to pierce the tough skin of animals. The male feeds on the juices of plants as do the females when they cannot get blood. It is not at all necessary for mosquitoes to have the warm blood of man or other animals. Comparatively few of them ever taste blood.
The uppermost of these, the labrum-epipharynx, or labrum as we will call it, is the largest and is really a hollow tube very slightly open on its under side. Just below this is the hypopharynx, the lateral margins of which are very thin. The other four needles consist of a pair of mandibles which are lance-shaped at the tip and a heavier pair of maxillæ, the tips of which are serrate on one edge.
There are two sets of these, each having three lobes with a common duct which joins the duct from the other set a short distance before they enter the base of the hypopharynx. After a mosquito has bitten a person and withdrawn the stylets, a small area about the puncture whitens, then soon becomes pink and begins to swell, then to itch and burn.
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