Mosquitoes Eating Mosquitoes: How Toxorhynchites amboinensis, Psorophora ciliata, and Sabethes cyaneus (Diptera: Culicidae) Capture Prey

Abstract

High-speed microcinematography was used to elucidate the details of prey capture by the larvae of three predatory mosquito species. The obligate predators Toxorhynchites amboinensis and Psorophora ciliata exhibited a high degree of convergence as both utilize three essential elements: 1) abdominally-generated hemostatic pressure to propel the head towards the prey; 2) lateral palatal brushes (LPB) opening and fanning into anterior-directed basket-like arrangements; 3) simultaneously with the LPB-basket formation, the wide opening of sharp-toothed mandibles. Thus, LPBs and mandibles are used for prey capture by both species. The facultative predator Sabethes cyaneus utilizes a vastly different prey-capture mechanism that involves ventro-lateral body arching and scooping of prey with axially pointed siphons into the grasp of open maxillae bearing elongate apical teeth. Prey consumption, which is typically incomplete in this species, then involves the action of teeth on the mandibles which cut into the held prey. Although prey consumption is incomplete, simple experiments show that Sa. cyaneus do gain nutritionally from consuming mosquito larvae and that they do discriminate heterospecific from conspecific larvae and actively approach heterospecific mosquito prey. These findings indicate that independent evolutionary pathways have produced diverse predatory behaviors and morphologies in aquatic environments where the immature stages of mosquitoes co-occur.