蚊子白天都去哪里了？

Mosquitoes are the bane of anyone who steps outside during the hours around dusk and dawn. If not caught in time, the creatures take a drink of blood, and then leave behind an itchy bump, and maybe a disease or two. But very rarely do the insects come out for a meal during daylight hours unless the sky is cloudy. So where do mosquitoes go during the daytime?

在黃昏或者清晨，人們外出時總會受到蚊子的攻擊，如果你不能及時發(fā)現(xiàn)它，這個小東西就會吸你的血，然后留下一個腫脹的小包，說不定還會留下一兩種病毒。但是除非陰天，否則你很少看到這種昆蟲在白天出來覓食，那么它們白天都去哪兒了呢?

First things first, the only mosquitoes that consume blood are female. Also, your blood does not provide them with anything they need nutritionally for their own health. Rather, they consume the blood of humans and other animals as a way to get certain nutrients needed for the proper development of their eggs. Yes, your blood is being used to make more mosquitoes.

首先，只有雌蚊子才吸食血液，并且你的血液并不給蚊子本身提供任何營養(yǎng)。它們吸食人類或者其他動物的血液是為了給它們的卵提供營養(yǎng)。是的，你的血液被用來孕育更多的蚊子。

Once the female has safely acquired a “blood meal,” she will rest for a few days while her body develops the eggs from digesting the proteins and iron in the blood, producing amino acids which are used as the building blocks for the synthesis of the egg yolk proteins.

一旦雌性蚊子吸飽了血，她就會休息幾天，并且利用這段時間消化吸收血液中的蛋白質(zhì)和鐵產(chǎn)生氨基酸(合成蛋黃蛋白質(zhì)的基本原料)來孕育自己的卵。

Though people are often bitten, most female mosquitoes actually prefer to feed on livestock and small mammals if given the choice. Male mosquitoes have no need for this sort of thing, so they do not indulge in the highly risky behavior that is sucking the blood of larger animals. If you’re curious as to what mosquitoes actually eat for their own nutritional needs, both male and female mosquitoes primarily feed on nectar from plants, much like honeybees, who incidentally seem to know the world is round and can even do some remarkably complex math in their heads.

雖然人們經(jīng)常被咬，但是如果能選擇的話，雌蚊子更傾向于吸食家畜和小型哺乳動物的血。雄蚊子就不需要這種食物，所以它也就不會因為吸食大型動物的血液而陷入被捕殺的危險中。也許你很好奇蚊子滿足本身的營養(yǎng)需要吃什么，實際上無論是雄蚊子還是雌蚊子只要吸食植物的甘露就可以生存下去，這生物很像蜜蜂，那種知道地球是圓的并且可以做一些非常復雜的數(shù)學運算的小生物。

The majority of mosquitoes feed around evening and at dawn. The dry heat that often occurs during daylight hours in the summer can quickly kill mosquitoes by causing them to become dehydrated. As such, most mosquitoes rest or sleep in a dark, sheltered place during the daylight hours, preferably an area that is relatively humid, such as tucked inside vegetation like plants and grass. They also can be found sleeping the day away inside man made structures like culverts or barns, or natural shelters such as caves, holes in the ground, and holes in trees.

大部分蚊子在傍晚或黎明覓食，因為夏日白天的干熱會讓它們脫水而死。有鑒于此，大多數(shù)蚊子白天的時候休息或小憩于蔭蔽、潮濕的地方，像樹木、草叢等植被的空隙里。人們也會在白天看到它們棲息在暗溝、畜棚等人工建筑或土地洞穴、樹洞等天然形成的蔭蔽所中。