Larval Habitat Characteristics of Mosquitoes of the Genus Culex (Diptera: Culicidae) in Guilan Province, Iran

An investigation was carried out during April to December 2000 to study mosquito fauna and ecology in Guilan Prov-ince of northern Iran. The mosquito larvae were collected by dipping method and larval habitat characteristics recorded ac-cording to hydro-ecological features. In total, 3937 larvae of the genus Culex from 92 larval breeding sites were collected. Six spe¬cies of the genus Culex; Cx. mimeticus, Cx. pipiens, Cx. theileri, Cx. tritaeniorhynchus, Cx. hortensis, and Cx. terri-tans were identified in the province and respectively comprised 10.3%, 47.2%, 2.2%, 31%, 6.5%, and 2.8% of the samples. Most of the larvae were collected from the natural habitats (75.6%) such as river edges (6.5%), riverbed pools (28.2%), rain pools (47.8%), stream edges (9.4%), grasslands (1.9%), marshes (2.8%), and hoof-prints (3.4%) and others from artificial habitats (24.4%) including rice fields (32.1%), irrigation channels (7.1%), wells (16.4%), discarded concrete tubes (33.1%), dis¬carded tires (11.0%), and agricultural water-storage pools (0.3%). The ecology of Cx. pipiens and Cx. tritaeniorhynchus, which are the most prevalent species and potentially involved in the transmission of many pathogens to humans and domes¬ticated animals, must be extensively studied