McCrae A W
Ann Trop Med Parasitol. 1984 Jun;78(3):307-18.
Females of Anopheles gambiae s. lat., most of which would have been A. gambiae s. str., were collected from houses in coastal Kenya and tested for their oviposition preferences using Petri dishes in large laboratory cages with lighting equivalent to weak moonlight. Significantly more eggs were laid overnight in water over black than over paler tones, and this difference increased as contrast with the surrounding floor was increased. Direct observation revealed that over white targets, females oviposited from a settled posture, whereas over black targets they did so from flight. The influence on this behaviour of target darkness (tone) overrode that of cage size or target size. In tests which yielded markedly fewer eggs in sea water than in tap water, no significant difference was detected when cage floors were either black or white, although a black floor might have resulted in significantly greater discrimination against sea water had more tests been conducted. All further testing was done over black cage floors. Turbid water from a natural development site received more eggs than distilled, tap or swamp water, even though the turbid water appeared paler than the others. The females did not discriminate between rearing water and tap water, or tap water with and without pupae, but the presence of larvae was repellent. Turbid water from a development site thus seemed to possess an arrestant property which overrode selection favouring darker targets, and which was not derived from prior presence of conspecific immatures. It is suggested that for A. gambiae, oviposition from a settled posture is a response to sub-optimal stimuli, possibly indicating conditions under which oviposition would not occur in nature, and hence why cage experiments using white targets have in the past yielded confusing results.
冈比亚按蚊复合体的雌性蚊子，其中大部分可能是冈比亚按蚊指名亚种，从肯尼亚沿海的房屋中采集，并在大型实验室笼子里使用培养皿测试它们的产卵偏好，笼子里的光照强度相当于微弱的月光。与较浅色调相比，在黑色水面上一夜之间产下的卵明显更多，并且随着与周围地面对比度的增加，这种差异也会增大。直接观察发现，在白色目标上，雌性蚊子以静止姿势产卵，而在黑色目标上，它们从飞行状态产卵。目标黑暗度（色调）对这种行为的影响超过了笼子大小或目标大小的影响。在海水中产卵明显少于自来水中的测试中，当笼子底部为黑色或白色时，未检测到显著差异，尽管如果进行更多测试，黑色底部可能会导致对海水的歧视明显更大。所有进一步的测试都在黑色笼子底部进行。来自自然发育场所的浑浊水比蒸馏水、自来水或沼泽水接收的卵更多，尽管浑浊水看起来比其他水更浅。雌性蚊子在饲养用水和自来水之间，以及有蛹和没有蛹的自来水之间没有区分，但幼虫的存在具有驱避作用。因此，来自发育场所的浑浊水似乎具有一种引诱特性，这种特性超过了对较暗目标的选择偏好，并且不是来自同种未成熟个体的先前存在。有人认为，对于冈比亚按蚊来说，以静止姿势产卵是对次优刺激的一种反应，这可能表明在自然条件下不会发生产卵的情况，因此过去使用白色目标的笼子实验会产生令人困惑的结果。
