Life Cycle and Anatomy
The four stages of mosquito development.
What are egg, larva, pupa and adult?
This invasive Aedes has a single white stripe down the center of its thorax.
What is Aedes albopictus?
Since 2004, this has been the most commonly reported mosquito-borne disease in California.
What is West Nile virus?
Its protein crystals must be eaten by larvae, and has multiple delta-endotoxins.
What is Bti (Bacillus thuringiensis israelensis)?
This application method releases very small droplets that float through the air to contact flying mosquitoes.
What is ULV (ultra-low volume)?
Districts stock this small fish to eat larvae in ponds, troughs and neglected pools.
What is mosquitofish? (Gambusia affinis)?
This active but non-feeding aquatic stage breathes through a pair of respiratory trumpets.
What is the pupa?
This invasive day-biter, established in the Central Valley since 2013, has a lyre-shaped silver pattern on its thorax.
What is Aedes aegypti?
Birds amplify WNV, while humans and horses are this type of host because they do not pass it back to mosquitoes.
What are dead-end hosts?
This insect growth regulator mimics juvenile hormone, so larvae die as pupae instead of emerging. It was also the first commercial JH mimic.
What is methoprene?
This synergist is added to pyrethrins and pyrethroids to block the insect's detoxifying enzymes.
What is piperonyl butoxide (PBO)?
Eliminating or managing standing water so mosquitoes cannot breed.
What is source reduction or physical control?
In Culex and Aedes larvae, this tube at the tip of the abdomen reaches the water surface for air.
What is the siphon?
The southern house mosquito, an urban WNV vector that breeds in catch basins, septic tanks and polluted water.
What is Culex quinquefasciatus?
Baited with dry ice, this trap collects host-seeking females, and is often set in orchards high above the ground.
What is a CO₂ (EVS) trap?
Because pupae don't feed, these products that spread across the water surface are among the few that kill them.
What are surface oils or monomolecular films?
Sold as Dibrom or Trumpet, this organophosphate adulticide is often applied aerially by ULV.
What is naled?
The level of larval or adult abundance, or virus activity, that signals it is time to take control action.
What is an action threshold?
Only females bite, because protein from the blood meal is needed for this.
What is egg production?
This "encephalitis mosquito" of irrigated farmland and is also a rural vector of West Nile virus in the Central Valley.
What is Culex tarsalis?
This trap uses a smelly organic infusion, and targets Culex females looking to lay eggs.
What is a gravid trap?
This microbial larvicide persists and recycles in polluted water, and targets a single specific receptor on midgut cells.
What is Bacillus sphaericus (Lysinibacillus sphaericus)?
Applying at dusk or night takes advantage of this weather condition that keeps the spray cloud near the ground.
What is a temperature inversion?
Applying larvicides to waters of the U.S. in California is covered under this statewide permit from the State Water Board.
What is the NPDES permit (National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System)?
The ability to mature and lay the first batch of eggs without needing a blood meal.
What is autogenous egg development?
The western malaria mosquito, closely tied to Sacramento Valley rice fields.
What is Anopheles freeborni?
This flavivirus, related to WNV and carried by Culex, re-emerged in California in 2015 after years of absence.
What is St. Louis encephalitis virus?
Derived from fermentation of the soil bacterium, this larvicide acts on the nervous system.
What is spinosad?
This resistance mechanism, a mutation in the sodium channel gene, reduces the effect of pyrethroids.
What is kdr (knockdown resistance)?
Under the California Health and Safety Code, a property producing mosquitoes can be declared this, allowing a district to order abatement.
What is a public nuisance?