Visualization of blood sucking phenomena of a female mosquito

암 모기 흡혈과정 가시화

As a carrier of malaria and sneak of blood, mosquitoes are regarded as an unpleasant insect. However, there are novel phenomena that happen inside a mosquito. Among them, we focused on the blood sucking function of a female mosquito. The main objective of this study was to investigate the mosquito's pumping mechanism in order to resolve the problem encountered when we inject or transport biologic fluids into a micro-chip. To analyze the pumping mechanism, we visualized the blood sucking process inside a female mosquito. Flow characteristics of blood flow in a proboscis were investigated experimentally using a micro-PIV velocity field measurement technique. The anatomical variation of head, thorax, abdomen which work as pumps and valves, was visualized using the syncrotron X-ray micro-imaging technique.