Home|Journals|Articles by Year|Audio Abstracts
 

Original Research

Nig. J. Basic Appl. Sci.. 2008; 16(2): 193-196


Species Abundance and Colour Preferences of Oviposition by Mosquitoes in Man-Made Containers under Field Conditions in Sokoto, Nigeria

M.Z. Badamasi, T. Adamu and A.Y. Bala.




Abstract

A study was conducted to determine the occurrence and colour preferences of oviposition by mosquitoes in man-made containers under field conditions. A total of nine (9) different colour 2 litre plastic containers were used as artificial mosquito oviposition containers. They were filled with equal amounts of water and placed in the biological garden of the Department of Biological Sciences, Usmanu Danfodiyo University Sokoto. The containers were observed for seven (7) days for mosquito larvae. A total of 319 larvae belonging to four genera, Aedes, Anopheles, Culex and Mansonia were co-habiting/ colonizing the garden. The highest occurring genus was Culex with 108 (33.9%) larvae, followed by Aedes with 92 (28.8%), Mansonia 79 (24.8%) and Anopheles with 40 (12.5%) larvae. The colour preference of mosquitoes was in this order: red 25.4 % (81), brown 20.4 % (65), black 16.0% (51), blue 13.2% (42), purple 10.3% (33), pink 7.8% (25), green 6.3% (20), yellow 0.6% (2) and white 0% (0). Although many genera oviposited in more than one colour container, the general distribution of larvae revealed that Aedes and Culex preferred red colour, Mansonia preferred brown container while Anopheles preferred black container. This study shows the importance of colour in determining the breeding sites and thus the occurrence of mosquitoes. The implications of such containers as possible breeding foci of mosquitoes of potential public health significance have been highlighted.

Key words: Colour preferences, Man-made containers, oviposition, Mosquito larvae






Full-text options


Share this Article


Online Article Submission
• ejmanager.com




ejPort - eJManager.com
Refer & Earn
JournalList
About BiblioMed
License Information
Terms & Conditions
Privacy Policy
Contact Us

The articles in Bibliomed are open access articles licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.