A curious adaptation of habit to environment of a Malayan mosquito
This short note by C. Strickland, Travelling Medical Entomologist of the F.M.S., records an unusual oviposition behaviour observed in Chaetomyia (Leicesteria) flava at the Gap on the Selangor-Pahang boundary (2,800 ft).
Summary
Strickland describes observing a female C. flava carrying an ova-mass attached to a hind-leg, from which young larvae were already emerging. When the mosquito was placed in a bottle of water, it dipped its leg into the water and the larvae immediately hatched and swam away. He observed the phenomenon on two occasions and once caught a specimen whose leg still bore the empty ova-mass. Strickland concludes that the mosquito oviposits on its own leg as a device for depositing larvae in water collections inaccessible by ordinary means—such as bamboo joints or leaf axils of plants like kladi or pig-lily—or possibly to protect the eggs from danger on the water surface (p. 39).