mosquitoes feel rubbish if they eat a massive meal just after waking

An example of anthropomorphism in public scientific discourse,

"We feel rubbish if we eat a massive meal just before we go to bed or immediately if we wake up. The same is going to be true for mosquitoes as well. Taking a huge blood meal which is kind of like drinking a bath of soup if you are a human, and doing that a strange time of day when our circadian clocks aren't expecting it isn't going to be so good for our health – better than starving, but not great. Same is probably true for the parasites [hosted by some mosquitoes]."

Prof. Sarah Reece (Professor of Evolutionary Parasitology at the University of Edinburgh) was talking on an episode ('Don't Bite Me!') of Curious Cases.

Perhaps mosquitoes do feel rubbish, but I am not sure we can every know whether that is true.

Read about anthropomorphism

Read examples of anthropomorphism in science

The comparison of a blood-mean to a bath of soup is an example of how making a comparison with something on a more human scale.

Read about quotidian comparisons


Read: 'What it is like to be a mosquito'

The image shows a mosquito feeding on a human (picture by FotoshopTofs sourced from Pixabay). Inset image shows the website icon for BBC Curious Cases.
What is it like to be a mosquito?

Author: Keith

Former school and college science teacher, teacher educator, research supervisor, and research methods lecturer. Emeritus Professor of Science Education at the University of Cambridge.