Thursday 7 March 2024

Some Florida Mosquitoes Spend the Winter in Tortoise Burrows

Side-by-side image: At left, a gopher tortoise emerges from the mouth of its underground burrow. The tortoise's face and forelimbs are dark gray, nearly black, in color, while its shell is dirty brown. The dirt surrounding the mouth of the burrow is grayish brown and sandy. At right is a closeup of a mosquito on human skin with its needle-like mouthparts inserted into the skin. The mosquito is grayish gold in color, with iridesent hairs on its thorax. Its abdomen is horizontally striped in alternating black and white.

This post Some Florida Mosquitoes Spend the Winter in Tortoise Burrows appeared first on Entomology Today - Brought to you by the Entomological Society of America.

Gopher tortoise burrows are well known for providing shelter for wide variety of other animals. A new study finds Culex erraticus mosquitoes among them and suggests their interaction with tortoises may play a role in circulating West Nile virus and other mosquito-borne diseases in Florida. [Read more]

The post Some Florida Mosquitoes Spend the Winter in Tortoise Burrows appeared first on Entomology Today.



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