Mosquito eggs: Collecting egg rafts for pesticide resistance testing

 


Friday June 28, 2024

I had set up buckets of stinky water to attract mosquitoes to lay their eggs the day before. Then I came back the next day and to my surprise, the buckets were full of mosquito egg rafts. I was very excited! Each egg raft contains anywhere from 100 - 400 individual mosquito eggs. Once I had collected enough egg rafts to fill the centrifuge tubes I headed back to the lab. In the controlled lab environment, I opened the caps of the tubes and allowed the mosquitoes to hatch over the weekend. When I came back to work the following week the mosquitoes had hatched into their larval stage and were ready to be shipped for pesticide resistance testing. 

            A bucket full of mosquito egg rafts (200+) 

I am scooping the egg rafts out of the bucket (the little black triangle is one egg raft). 
A picture of me labeling the tubes for the egg raft collection. Now they are ready for pesticide resistance testing. 

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