|
Mosquito Alert
Mosquito Alert is a cooperative citizen science project, currently run as a non-profit and coordinated by four public research centers in Spain. The aim of the project is to study, monitor, and fight the spread of invasive mosquitoes transmitting global diseases such as dengue, Zika, Chikungunya or West Nile fever. The Asian tiger mosquito (''Aedes albopictus'') and the yellow fever mosquito (''Aedes aegypti'') are some of the invasive species that Mosquito Alert watches out for. The project provided the first detection of the Asian bush mosquito ''Aedes japonicus'' in Spain in 2018, providing the first report of a population of mosquitos that were located 1,300 km from their previously nearest known location in Europe. Surveillance is carried out with the Mosquito Alert app, which allows anyone with a smartphone to take a photo and report the possible discovery of one of the mosquitoes studied as well as their breeding sites. A team of expert entomologists validates the ph ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mosquito Alert Coverage In Europe
Mosquitoes, the Culicidae, are a family of small flies consisting of 3,600 species. The word ''mosquito'' (formed by '' mosca'' and diminutive ''-ito'') is Spanish and Portuguese for ''little fly''. Mosquitoes have a slender segmented body, one pair of wings, three pairs of long hair-like legs, and specialized, highly elongated, piercing-sucking mouthparts. All mosquitoes drink nectar from flowers; females of some species have in addition adapted to drink blood. The group diversified during the Cretaceous period. Evolutionary biologists view mosquitoes as micropredators, small animals that parasitise larger ones by drinking their blood without immediately killing them. Medical parasitologists view mosquitoes instead as vectors of disease, carrying protozoan parasites or bacterial or viral pathogens from one host to another. The mosquito life cycle consists of four stages: egg, larva, pupa, and adult. Eggs are laid on the water surface; they hatch into motile larvae that f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
