Fluorescent marked mosquito offer a method for tracking and study mosquito behaviour

Despite intensive research on vector-borne diseases, there remains a bias toward bionomics, ento-epidemiology, and operational research. In particular, relatively few studies have focused on vector behaviour and the use of labelling/marking techniques to do so. This manuscript dealt with a unique and easy mass marking technique, done using two different fluorescent colour dyes – Rhodamine and Fluorescein on Culex quinquefasciatus. We prepared 10% sugar solution in water containing these two dyes and fed the mosquitoes. Mosquito abdomen becomes marked with respective colour after feeding. Thus, by using this simple feeding technique, we could address and eliminate most of the challenges of insect marking observed in the past. Further, we found no significant difference in survival between mosquitoes marked with fluorescent dyes and the control group of mosquitoes. We also did not find any impact of two marking dyes on the reproductive health and life cycle of the mosquitoes. This method of colour marking can be used for studies related to the mark-release-recapture of mosquitoes, track free flying mosquito’s behaviour in a dark room, simultaneous bio-toxicity or repellent experiment of different populations or strains of same species together in a single experiment and many more novel applications.