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Mosquito adults usually need to obtain sugar from floral nectaries and damaged fruits/seed pods to replenish their energy reserves. The newly developed attractive toxic sugar baits have been successfully applied in controlling various mosquito species outdoors. However, the attraction of Culex pipiens pallens to different fruit-based sugar baits remains unknown. In the present study, we selected nine common fruit species, prepared the fruit-based sugar solutions, and investigated the attractiveness of different sugar baits to newly emerged Cx. pipiens pallens in the laboratory. The results showed that when tested against the 5% brown sugar solution, all the sugar baits were significantly attractive to both females and males. When tested together in the mesh-covered cage, there was a significant difference on the attractiveness between different fruit-based sugar baits. The most attractive fruit species included Broussonetia papyrifera, Cucumis melo, C. melo var. saccharinus, Amygdalus persica and Pyrus bretschneideri, and their seed pods could be potentially used as ingredients in ATSB for controlling mosquitoes outdoors.

Adult mosquitoes rely on ingestion of sugar from plants to survive, swarm and mate. Culex pipiens pallens Coguillett is the primary vector of lymphatic filariasis and epidemic encephalitis. Little is known about the effect of feeding on different sugar sources on the survivorship and fecundity of Cx. pipiens pallens. In the present study, newly emerged mosquitoes were exposed to several flowering plant and seed pod species with different olfactory preferences, and the survival times of mosquitoes exposed to these sugar sources were determined. The proportions of mosquitoes that ingested sugar from host plants were investigated by cold anthrone tests. The numbers of eggs per egg raft laid by mosquitoes were compared when they were provided with different sugar sources and one blood meal. The results revealed that feeding on different kinds of sugar sources significantly affected female and male mosquitoes' survival times. Cold anthrone tests indicated that the proportions of sugar-positive mosquitoes from different nutritional regimes within 24h corresponded to the preference rankings of Cx. pipiens pallens to these sugar sources, and rapid declines in the proportions of surviving individuals might be attributed to their insufficient ingestion of sugar from nutritional regimes. Feeding on different sugar sources strongly affected the proportions of engorged mosquitoes, and females that had fed on their preferred sugar sources laid more eggs than mosquitoes provided with less preferred sugar sources. The results would provide insights in developing mosquito control strategies that target the sugar feeding behavior of mosquitoes.