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150                       Wisconsin Academy Review
                  PEST MOSQUITOES IN WISCONSIN
                      By Robert J. Dicke
                 Department of Entomology, UW
     Altogether, there are some 36 species in Wisconsin's
mosquito fauna representing only about 28% of all the
species described for America north of Mexico. This is a
relatively small group of insects for the entire State
compared with Charles Fluke's 200 or more syrphid flies or
Roy Shenefelt's 450 ichneumonids. But probably as much has
been written about the bionomics and taxonomy of the mos-
quito family as for any other group, and with good reason.
For among the Culicidae, or mosquitoes, are the dreaded
carriers of malaria, yellow fever, encephalitis (equine
and human), filariasis and dengue fever, and some of the
most annoying blood sucking parasites of man and his
domesticated animals.
     Fortunately, very few of our species are actually
enemies of man. Only one of our five species of Anopheles
is a vector of malaria, and she (only f emale mosquitoes
are blood sucking parasites) is confined as a problem to
a narrow strip of lowland along the Mississippi River. Some
of them, such as the huge but harmless Psorophora ciliata,
are predators on other mosquitoes during the larval or
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Wisconsin Academy Review