Laboratory Mating of Aedes vexans (Diptera: Culicidae)1

Abstract

While most efforts to produce cage conditions that encourage stenogamy within a population of Aedes vexans (Meigen) have met with little success (Horsfall et al. 1973), mating of caged A. vexans has been previously reported by Dashkina and Tsarichkova (1965). However, neither the percent insemination nor the percent egg viability was given in their brief account. Female adults were observed to copulate with swarming males under reduced light conditions, when the adults were kept in a cage 100 × 100 × 200 cm high.