Efficacy of different blood meals for the mass rearing of Aedes aegypti (Diptera: Culicidae) population

Mosquitoes are vectors of several deadly diseases that resulted in millions of deaths. The host preferences in each mosquito species are innately driven. The current study was conducted to examine the host blood preference of Aedes aegypti using an artificial blood feeder. Females of Ae. aegypti were offered blood of four different hosts including human (B^+ ve), albino rat, cow and chicken to calculate the number of blood-fed females, oviposited eggs, number of emerged larvae, pupae and adults. The results of the study revealed that maximum number of females (34.67) fed on human blood. However, females exhibited minimum preference towards chicken blood (27.33). Similarly, maximum eggs (454.33) were laid by females which fed on human blood followed by those which took blood of albino rat (425.7). Likewise, maximum number of larvae emerged from eggs laid by females which fed albino rat (382.67) and human blood (368.33). Moreover, all the larvae belonging to different host blood successfully transformed into pupae. The results further revealed that maximum adults emerged from albino rat treatment (369.00) followed by human blood treatment (361.67). It is concluded that human and albino rat blood are valuable feeding sources for successful rearing of Ae. aegypti mosquitoes in laboratory conditions.