Revelation, Rationality, Knowledge & Truth — Page 477
NATURAL SELECTION AND SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST amidst all the extraneous stimuli with which the environment bombards it. Scientists say the strategy that they have evolved is to: *. . . respond to visual cues, heat, and emanations such as carbon dioxide, lactic acid, and volatile fatty acids that are typical of those organisms that contain blood. '10. A further difficulty faced by the mosquito is the fact that chemical odour emanations are dispersed through air currents. Thus the mosquito must navigate an indirect route to the host. As the mosquito comes closer to the host, heat is used by it to home in on the host. During this chain of events in the mosquito's behaviour, a stimulus-response mechanism has to be perfected within it. The mosquito is not consciously seeking a host, but rather responding to stimuli for which it has been pre-programmed. Further complicating the issue is the fact that most mosquitoes are species-specific in their host seeking behaviour. For example, a certain species of mosquito may respond only to the stimuli of a cow and yet not respond to those of a human. . Scientists speculate this behaviour evolved in the. Mesozoic era (over sixty-five millions years ago) with . . . the establishment of regular terrestrial dwellings (nests) by reptiles, birds, and mammals. . . ” › 11. It is suggested by some scientists that the emergence of parental care in birds, mammals and dinosaurs further promoted associations with mosquitoes by providing them well protected and secure habitats. They felt at an advantage in and around nests where the young of the birds were kept. The same applied to the dens of the beasts of the jungle and the habitats of the dinosaurs where they reared their young. This, they suggest, presented opportunities for 456