Abstract

Mosquitoes, as major vectors of dangerous diseases, demand effective control measures for public health. Larvicides, while offering a potential solution, can exhibit varying effects on different mosquito species and developmental stages during efficacy studies. Standardizing mosquito developmental stages and ensuring optimal, synchronized development rates of various larval stages are crucial for larvicidal experiments and maximizing pupal production. Manual separation of different stages of larvae is labor intensive, time consuming and error prone. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the use of a stereolithography 3D-printed device for the separation of mosquito larvae. This device is designed to have three modules to collect different larval stages based on their radial size differences. Each module of the device was equipped with small vibration motors to enable vibration-assisted filtration to prevent clogging. The accuracy of the larvae separation device was studied by repeated experiments and collected samples were analyzed under an optical microscope. The 3D-printed device was demonstrated to be orders of magnitude faster and more accurate compared to manual separation process. A larvicidal bioassay was also designed to investigate larvicidal assay impact on the survival of collected L3 and L4 specimens. Overall, it was shown that the presented device carries an important potential for rapid and accurate separation of different size larvae for larvicidal studies.

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