Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 July 2009
Sir Rickard Christophers (1947) working at 25°C. and a relative humidity of 80–90 per cent. found female Aëdes aegypti to be attracted by a warm dry surface at 40°C., and to be unaffected by a moist surface at room temperature. The writer (1948), working at 28°C. and 50–70 per cent. R.H. (usually near 50 per cent.) found the opposite: a warm dry surface at temperatures from 36°C. to 40°C. had no effect, while a moist surface at room temperature exerted a quite definite attraction. The purpose of the present experiments was to test the hypothesis that the difference between the results obtained in these two investigations was due to the difference in the ambient temperature and humidity.
Repetition of the relevant experiments at 25°C, 85–90 per cent. R.H., and 28°C, 50–55 per cent. R.H., gave results indicating that temperature and humidity difference operating at the time of the experiment could account for part but not all of the discrepancy. There are indications that the remainder may have been a result of the conditioning effect of temperature and humidity differences operating on the insect prior to the experiment.
The results emphasise the need for a full description of the climatic conditions under which behaviour work of the type discussed is performed.
To send this article to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save this article to your Dropbox account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you used this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your Dropbox account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save this article to your Google Drive account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you used this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your Google Drive account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.