Fig. 1

Setup for maintaining of Culicoides nubeculosus adult insects as well as for their blood-feeding and egg sampling. a Cardboard box with a colony of adult biting midges (note that each box is covered with fine-mesh bolting silk, and a plastic tube is screwed into the box bottom) short arrow, fine-mesh bolting silk and biting midges inside box; triangle arrowhead, cardboard ring, which fixes bolting silk to the insect cage; long arrow, plastic tube. b Small plastic container covered with parafilm and filled with blood (note that this container should be screwed into the bottom of the box (a) so that insects access the blood during feeding) arrowhead, small plastic container with blood covered with parafilm. c Thermos and a box with insects (note that insect box is placed on the top of the thermos, which is filled with warm water, resulting in heating of the plastic tube with blood). d, e Biting midges taking a blood meal. f, g Eggs on the cotton pad inside plastic tubes (f) and under a stereomicroscope at a low magnification (g); arrowheads, eggs which look like black spots on the filter paper (f) and are readily visible as elongate bodies under stereomicroscope (g)