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Week 9

West Nile Virus Positives

This week, we had three West Nile Virus positive pools this week: in Blackstone, Natick, and Worcester. Blackstone and Natick are in my route, so I trapped the positive mosquitoes in those towns. It's a little scary knowing I was so close to mosquitoes with WNV. This positive case has also brought new meaning to my job as a trapper. I'm glad I was part of the team that caught these WNV cases and were able to help out the public. I think these positives will peak public curiosity and worry about mosquitoes, so I think I will have a lot more people come up and ask my questions. So, I'll make sure to brush up on my knowledge of WNV so that I can educate them and hopefully minimize their risk of contracting a vector-borne disease. 

Golden Anopheles 

Last week we found many mosquitoes uncommon to central Massachusetts in our traps. On Thursday, Audrey and I were processing mosquitoes when she noticed a very large, golden bug in her trap. We didn't know what it was, so we put it in a sample cup and went to the lab. Emily, one the seasonal entomologists, didn't think it was a mosquito, until she saw its telltale scales. She thought it looked like an anopheles, but it was huge and golden. She called in the entomologist, and he confirmed that it was an anopheles. He said it was a Toxorhynchites rutilus. He said that he had only seen one of them in his four years spent in mosquito labs. These types of mosquitoes are very rare because they eat other mosquito larvae. 

Toxorhynchites rutilus
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