And the cycle is complete......

Post date: Sep 9, 2014 7:41:16 PM

The southern house mosquito needs standing water to lay egg rafts, each of which can have 100 or more eggs. So, before leaving the lab yesterday, I put a tray of water in one of the mosquito cages, in the hopes of having fresh egg rafts this morning. Below is a picture of the result. Each dark spot (roughly the size of a flax seed) floating on the surface of the water in the white tray is an egg raft. The adults in the cages came from egg rafts that were laid on August 20 and 21, so it only took three weeks from the time the previous eggs were laid for the larvae to hatch and develop through four instars, pupate, emerge as adults, mate, and produce more eggs! It is even possible that I could have sped up the cycle a little bit by giving them access to the egg laying water a little sooner.