Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!usc!apple!sun-barr!cs.utexas.edu!turpin
From: turpin@cs.utexas.edu (Russell Turpin)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: Mosquitoes etc.
Summary: Nah, the mosquito doesn't suffer.
Message-ID: <6837@cs.utexas.edu>
Date: 29 Aug 89 17:08:10 GMT
References: <9397@chinet.chi.il.us> <1177@nih-csl.UUCP>
Organization: U. Texas CS Dept., Austin, Texas
Lines: 23

In article <1177@nih-csl.UUCP>, jim@csl-sun3.dcrt.nih.gov (jim sullivan) writes:
> 	...  Malaria
> 	*does* infect the mosquito.  I think (am not sure) that it
> 	kills it as well.  It does at least become infected when it
> 	bites a person infected with malaria.  The life cycle of
> 	the disease has been very well documented for many years. ...

While a mosquito, in order to become a vector for malaria, must
first be infected by the plasmodium, this does not seem to affect
the mosquito much.  This should not be too surprising -- there
are many infections that do not bother humans much either.  

That the mosquito is better adapted to the malarial plasmodium
than we are is also not surprising.  (1) It has a much shorter
lifespan.  (2) We are a non-essential part of the plasmodium's
life-cycle.  It does just fine going back and forth between
mosquitos and various apes, who do not suffer as much as people
do.  Species that are either new or incidental to a disease
organism's life-cycle often suffer more from the disease than the
species which are essential to its life-cycle and with whom it
has adapted.

Russell