Measurement of salivation by Aedes aegypti (L.) feeding on a living host

Aedes aegypti mosquitoes having tritiated water in their body fluids were permitted to feed on living suckling mice. The quantity of saliva a mosquito left in a mouse was computed as the ratio of the radioactivity of the tritium found in the mouse and of the specific activity of the mosquito fluids. The fluids were extracted from individual mice and individual mosquitoes by lyophilization, and they were assayed for tritium in a liquid scintillation spectrometer. The quantity of saliva left in a mouse when a mosquito took a blood meal had a range of 1–13 μg, with a mean of 4·7 μg.