Week 1: The beginning of mosquito season

I am officially done with the first week. I am excited to say that I think this internship is going to be very fun and I am looking fowared to the rest of the summer! This week I learned about gravid traps and light traps. We have many locations all around Cape Cod, MA that are near marsh lands, salt marshes, and bogs. Mostly anywhere water pools for a longer amount of time. Mosquitoes love wetlands to breed new generations of tiny blood hunrgy vectors. My job is to set up and collect mosqutioes from trap collection sites and take them back to the lab, so the species can be identifiyed. I am still trying to learn the minute details that differentiate the 50 species of Massachusetts. I have seen mostly Aedes and Ochlerotatus genus mosquitoes and I have had find the differences between Aedes vexans, Ochlerotatus abserratus, Ochlerotatus canadensis, Ochlerotatus cantator, and Ochlerotatus excrucians. Also, I have started studying for the pesticide applicators license test which I hope to take in the next few weeks. 

On the rainy day this week (6/6/24) I went to get a light trap from to bring in for identification and I was imediately chased out of the woods by a swarm of mosquitoes. Luckily I made it back to the truck with the trap and mosquitoes and only one bite, so not too bad.

David

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