Re: mosquito larvae and baby eunotus

[Samala <samalaud@yahoo.com>]

Well, I don't think you can be sure you're not drawing
infected female mosquitoes to the culture pools.  But,
you can be obsessive with managing the culture pools
and being sure to capture all larvae.  I live in
northern Delaware and have been tailoring my culture
practices to match the increased West Nile problem.  

So how do you accomplish this?  I have three 1 gallon
tupperware containers that I rotate through
culturuing.  These are setup with declor water and
some yucky melon rinds - the mosquitoes just love it. 
I monitor the tubs each day until I start seeing egg
rafts.  As soon as egg rafts are observed I start the
countdown to 10 days.  (Mosquito larvae stay in the
water 4 to 14 days depending on the genus/species. 
Through studying the typical larvae I got early this
summer I judged that the ones I deal with tend to stay
in the water for 10 days.  Higher temperatures can
also cause larvae to develop faster.)