Friday 9 October 2015

Mosquitoes - you'd think they were done!

They were terrible in southeastern Ontario this year. Early spring mosquitoes appeared. It got too hot too quickly for blackflies, but it was ripe for the other biting insects.

I've hung on to these photos, but another mosquito in the house was a hoot.

I found one in the fruit fly trap, too. They can live in the house for a month or two. <SIGH>

I did some research. Just for fun. I grabbed a photo of a pair on my window sill and was struck by their differences.
fruit fly and wasp trap
You can see the one on the left.




If you have fruit flies, this trap works well. It's a wasp trap, methinks, but it works.

I was fascinated with their little furry bits during mating season. The males have plumose antennae.
I know that our famous David Suziki studied fruit flies, and this continues. Who knew there was this kind of research on mosquitoes?!

A Photographic Key to Adult Female Mosquito Species(PDF)

Males are most easily distinguished from females
by the presence of plumose antennae.
Mosquitoe surveillance project at Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario.
CJAI
Species of mosquitoes in Ontario

5 comments:

DUTA said...

They are terrible everywhere. I dont care to know anyting about them. I just want them out of sight and as far away as possible from where I am (house, bus stop, park etc..).

Nancy J said...

Did you make the fly trap, and I wonder if it would work for those small cluster flies? Mosquitoes, do you have a repellant, cream,, liquid, or a buzzer one?

William Kendall said...

One must wonder what the purpose of mosquitoes are!

Yamini MacLean said...

Hari OM
Mosquitoes are living beings too... funny you should post this today as I had just noticed this evening that I was being buzzed by a couple. In Scotland!!! YAM xx

Red said...

It's warm so I see the odd mosquito here. Yes there are many mosquito varieties.