Escaping from a blood host with freshly acquired nutrition for her eggs is one of the most critical actions in the life of a female malaria mosquito. During this take‐off, she has to carry a large payload, up to three times her body weight, while avoiding tactile detection by the host. What separates the malaria mosquito from most other insects is that the mosquito pushes off gently with its legs while producing aerodynamic forces with its wings. Apart from generating the required forces, the malaria mosquito has to produce the correct torques to pitch‐up during take‐off. Furthermore, the fed mosquito has to alter the direction of its aerodynamic force vector to compensate for the higher body pitch angle due to its heavier abdomen. Whether the mosquito generates these torques and redirection of the forces with its wings or legs remains unknown. By combining rigid‐body inverse dynamics analyses with computational fluid dynamics simulations, we show that mosquitoes use leg push‐off to control pitch torques and that the adaption of the aerodynamic force direction is synchronized with modulations in force magnitude. These results suggest that during the push‐off phase of a take‐off, mosquitoes use their flight apparatus primarily as a motor system and they use leg push‐off forces for control.

中文翻译：

---

疟疾蚊子在起飞过程中使用腿下推力来控制身体俯仰。

从带有新鲜获得的鸡蛋营养的血液宿主逃脱是雌性疟疾蚊子一生中最关键的动作之一。在起飞过程中，她必须携带重达其体重三倍的大有效载荷，同时还要避免主人发现触觉。疟疾蚊子与其他大多数昆虫的不同之处在于，蚊子用腿轻轻推动，同时用翅膀产生空气动力。除了产生所需的力量之外，疟疾蚊子还必须产生正确的扭矩以在起飞期间俯仰。此外，由于腹部较重，被喂食的蚊子必须改变其空气动力矢量的方向，以补偿较高的人体俯仰角。蚊子是否会产生这些扭矩以及其翅膀或腿部的力是否重定向仍然未知。通过将刚体逆动力学分析与计算流体动力学仿真相结合，我们证明了蚊子利用腿下推来控制俯仰扭矩，并且气动力方向的适应与力大小的调制同步。这些结果表明，在起飞的起飞阶段，蚊子主要将飞行器用作电动机系统，并利用腿部推力进行控制。