  Blood feeding represents a critical event in the life cycle of female
mosquitoes. In addition to providing nutrients to the mosquito, blood feeding
facilitates the transmission of parasites and viruses to hosts, potentially
having devastating health consequences. Despite this, our understanding of
these short, yet important bouts of behaviour is incomplete. How and where a
mosquito decides to feed and the success of feeding can influence the
transmission of pathogens, while a more thorough understanding may allow
interventions to reduce or prevent infections. Recent advances in machine
vision and automated tracking presents the opportunity to observe and
understand blood feeding behaviour of mosquitoes at unprecedented spatial and
temporal resolution. Here, we combine these technologies with novel designs for
behavioural arenas and controllable artificial host cues to enable detailed
observations of biting behaviour using relatively inexpensive and readily
available materials. Combined with a workflow for quantitative image analysis,
we are able to describe nuanced, high resolution biting behaviour under tightly
controlled conditions.
