The Nose Knows: How Malaria Mosquitoes Sniff Out Human Targets [Slide Show]
Researchers are learning much more about how Anopheles gambiae, the primary malaria mosquito, uses its smell organs to find human targets; the work involved stunning images from scanning electron microscopes
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The Nose Knows: How Malaria Mosquitoes Sniff Out Human Targets [Slide Show]
- SUCKING IN SMELLS: A pitted peg has a pore that allows individual molecules to enter. Receptor cells inside the pore latch onto the molecules if they have a telltale shape. Work by molecular biologist John Carlson at Yale University indicates that receptor cells are highly tuned to single odor molecules emitted by humans. Image courtesy of R. Jason Pitts and Laurence J. Zwiebel, Vanderbilt University
- PROBOSCIS AND PALPS: Malaria mosquitoes detect odors with a pair of antennae (shorter, outside structures) that surround a thicker, central proboscis, which controls the insect's piercing, blood-sucking stylets (the two ribbonlike strands). Two longer, thinner maxillary palps (only one is visible) also help smell and feel. Tiny bristles cover the protrusions, and house the ends of nerve cells that sense odor molecules. Image courtesy of R. Jason Pitts and Laurence J. Zwiebel, Vanderbilt University
