Effectiveness of several locally available membranes used for artificial feeding of Aedes albopictus Skuse.

Artificial feeding of mosquitoes with blood meal is an important technique in the studies of mosquito feeding. Owing to the difficulty in obtaining suitable artificial membranes for mosquito feeding from other sources, several easily obtainable membranes in Malaysia were tested for their suitability as a replacement. Skin of chicken, fish, and salted sausage were obtained and tested against cattle skin membrane as a control. The results showed that cattle skin is still the most favorable membrane to be used, with full engorgement rate of around 57% using fresh human blood. However, processed chicken skin was shown having potential for further testing since with feeding using human blood kept overnight at 4 degrees C, an engorgement rate of 50% was obtained.