Before it starts to breed, the female mosquito needs a meal of vertebrate blood to provide the protein it needs for egg production; the male does not bite.

[4] The adult female Anopheles funestus is "anthropophilic", being attracted to people rather than to other animals; however this is not invariably the case, as in Senegal, the populations of this mosquito in the west of the country feed on human blood while those in the east favour that of other mammals (zoophilic).

It feeds at night, typically after 10 p.m. and usually between midnight and dawn, which gives it access to widely dispersed hosts in a non-alert state.

[5] This is a highly adaptable species and many populations have developed resistance to pyrethroid insecticides, resulting in an upsurge of malarial infections in sub-Saharan Africa in the 1990s.

[2] A. funestus has widespread resistance to DDT and pyrethroids in Southern and West Africa, and in the Tororo District of Uganda in the east of the continent.