Tag Archives: identification
First mosquito of the season
Before it’s old news, I wanted to make it official. It’s Aedes (AID ees) season again in north Texas. Last weekend I spotted my first Aedes albopictus (Asian tiger mosquitoes) of the season. So from now until November, get used to having these pesky mosquitoes around. Alex Wild, curator of the insect museum at the University of Texas in Austin (the OTHER Texas University) tweeted his first Aedes aegypti (yellow fever mosquito) of the season a month ago. Since then I’ve been tempting my local backyard mosquito population with my succulent, winter-white legs… Read More →
Kissing bug identification requires closer look
Because most of us take little time to look closely at insects, it should not be surprising that recent television stories about “kissing bugs” and Chagas disease have created a frenzy of sorts among people thinking they have captured or seen kissing bugs around the home. While a few of these have turned out to be actual kissing bugs (genus Triatoma), most are not; and laboratories set up to identify and test kissing bugs have been overwhelmed this month with samples. But not all insects vaguely resembling the pictures you… Read More →