---

Good Afternoon Fellow Dipterans,

I am a South African insect enthusiast interested in studying Culicids. I find them to be a great interesting group of insects, and would like to be able to contribute information about them.

I am raising various Culicids from larvae caught in different locations, and am preserving both a larva, and an imago of each species. However, I am a little bit fuzzy on what the most important characteristics are when identifying larvae. Could anyone tell me which features in the larvae are most important?

I do not have access to top-of-the-range photography at present, so I am working on a method of photographing larvae using my flatbed scanner. I attach a photo of one of the larvae photographed in this manner. Any suggestions will be appreciated.



Thank you in advance,
Johanan E. Viljoen,
South Africa