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From: alan@apptek11.uucp (Alan Algustyniak)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: What's the Why and How of Mosquito Bites?
Message-ID: <24875@joyce.istc.sri.com>
Date: 16 Aug 89 19:47:53 GMT
References: <5399@mtgzy.att.com> <4948@tank.uchicago.edu> <9263@chinet.chi.il.us> <6704@cs.utexas.edu> <9279@chinet.chi.il.us>
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Reply-To: alan@apptek11.UUCP (Alan Algustyniak)
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> ARF says:

> Have you never smashed a blood-gorged mosquito sitting on your arm?  All
the
> senario needs to transfer, is for the mosquito to have taken a prior,
partial
> meal, from an AIDS carrier.

> Not quite as improbable as your virgin birth!
> Certainly not improbable enough to ignore as seems to be the case.


This reasoning seems convincing on the theoritical level, but one has to
wonder why, then, are not ALL sub-Saharan people infected by now?
I have read that mosquitos are not as attracted to black skin as
they are to white skin, but by how much, I don't know.

BTW, if mosquitos need blood to propogate, then how do the ones deep in
the swamps do it?  Where do they find their victims?  Oh, so that's
what those bumps on the backs of alligators are...:-)

	alan