![]() ![]() This suggests that attraction to thermal cues is contingent on the presence of the additional sensory cue CO 2. ![]() Gr3 mutants, unable to detect CO 2, were lured to the visual cue at ambient temperatures but fled and did not return when the surface was warmed to host-like temperatures. Moderate warmth became more attractive to mosquitoes, and mosquitoes aggregated on the cue at all non-noxious temperatures. In free-flight experiments with CO 2, adding a dark contrasting visual cue to a warmed surface enhanced attraction. This suggests that attraction to visual contrast is general and not contingent on other host cues. We show that tethered flying mosquitoes strongly orient toward dark visual contrast, regardless of CO 2 stimulation and internal host-seeking status. Here, we study the interaction of visual cues, heat, and CO 2 to investigate the contributions of human-associated stimuli to host-seeking decisions. Any of these sensory cues in isolation is an incomplete signal of a human host, and so a mosquito must integrate multimodal sensory information before committing to approaching and biting a person. ![]() Attractive cues include carbon dioxide (CO 2), a major component of exhaled breath heat elevated above ambient temperature, signifying warm-blooded skin and dark visual contrast, proposed to bridge long-range olfactory and short-range thermal cues. Female Aedes aegypti mosquitoes use multiple sensory modalities to hunt human hosts and obtain a blood meal for egg production. ![]()
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