Mosquito Project

My Mosquito Project
Location: Grand Rapids, MI
September 15, 2011 10:47 pm
Hey Bugman,
As we share a love for bugs and everything creepy crawly, I figured I’d share some of the photos I’ve taken during my Mosquito growing project. Our pool had become like a pond, and there were 1000’s of mosquito larvae swimming about. After learning about their process, I became so interested, I wanted to watch the whole thing, so I scooped some up, along with some algae and other things for them to eat in a jar and am having a LOT of fun watching this. I lost 90% of them when the cold snap hit, but the ones I have left are troopers and I actually have a few eggs left and a new one just hatched today, so here’s hoping 😉
Signature: Amanda Gorman

Hi Amanda,
Thanks so much for sending us your photos.  Do you release the adults?  Are you feeding the adults warm blood?  We are positively intrigued by your Mosquito Project, but we cannot imagine your neighbors are terribly amused.

Hey Daniel,
I’m glad you guys liked my pictures. I’m actually not doing anything SPECIAL with the mosquito larvae. I had so much fun watching them in the pool, so I learned about them. Then, once I learned about the process, I wanted to watch the whole thing, so I literally just rinsed out a jar and scooped water out of the pool and those were the lives I got. Mostly larvae, a few pupae, and some eggs!!! I put fresh plant life in the jar to create oxygen, and I add a fresh leaf here and there for fresh oxygen. BUT I scooped out a wad of algae from the bottom of the pool so they had a good start on food, and then the jar sits in the sun, so it grows new algae every day. On cloudy days, I add just a little algae from the pool. As far as adults, like I said, it’s just a jar outside, so I’m just letting nature take it’s course. They will fly away when they are ready. I started this last Sunday and at the time between pupae, larvae, and newly hatched eggs (NEARLY microscopic) I had roughly 50 specimens. Then Tuesday morning we started our cold snap here in MI and I lost 80% of them. It seemed I had 9 strong ones that were troopers. 5 full grown larvae, 2 juvenile larvae from Monday, a TINY larvae that had JUST hatched, and ONE pupa. HOWEVER, it was SUPER cold last night and I lost even MORE. I am down to 5 I think. My pupa is gone too, which sucks….but I have eggs, I just doubt they will hatch in this weather.  I sent you all an identification request about a bug that was living with the mosquito larvae in the pool and skitters along the bottom. When I put some fresh algae in today, i must have picked up two of these guys, b/c now I have THEM living in the jar as well, so I attached 2 pictures of this bug in addition to the one I attached to my original identification request. It’s driving me nuts that I cannot figure out what this creature is.
I am having a lot of health issues so I cannot work right now, so this has been an AMAZING occupation of my mind and time. If nothing else this “project” prolongs their life SOME b/c otherwise they would have just all gone when the water drains out and the pool gets vacuumed.
I apologize this response is so long, it’s just no one else I know likes bugs enough for me to tell all the details to, so I got kinda carried away! 🙂 Thanks for what you guys do!!!

Hi again Amanda,
Thank you for supplying additional information on the scope of your Mosquito project.  The new insect you submitted is a predatory Dragonfly Naiad, and perhaps it is responsible to the losses in your Mosquito Larvae due to predation.

Thx so much!! It was driving me crazy I didnt know what this bug was. I attriibute a combo of the dragonfly naiad and the cold to losing my little wigglers, but such is the circle of life. Im def gonna do this EARLY next summer!!