Blood meals of 7552 mosquitoes of 13 species were identified from sylvan and urban areas of Charleville, southwestern Queensland, Australia, between 1976 and 1979. Over 80% of the meals identified were from Culex annulirostris, the major vector of Murray Valley encephalitis in Australia. The feeding patterns of Cx. annulirostris showed remarkable consistency between years, but the relative abundance of available hosts within and outside Charleville played a major role in influencing host selection. In sylvan sites mammalian feeding ranged from 85 to 93%, whereas in town sites where chickens were common this was reduced to between 57 and 67%. Culex quinquefasciatus and Cx. australicus fed predominantly on birds (domestic poultry and passerines, respectively). Anopheles annulipes, An. amictus, and 6 Aedes spp. fed mainly on mammals, whereas Cx. (Lophoceraomyia) cylindricus fed predominantly on poikilotherms. These host-feeding data are in keeping with other studies in Australia suggesting that Cx. annulirostris prefers to feed on mammalian rather than avian blood if it is available.
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Kay et al. (1985) studied this question.