Species Composition and Relative Abundance of Mosquitoes in Swat, Pakistan

A comprehensive survey of mosquitoes (Diptera: Culicidae) was conducted in Swat Pakistan, from April to September during 2000. The survey involved the sampling of both, adult and immature stages of mosquitoes, and recovered a total of 21 species in five genera. Sampling of adult mosquitoes involved Pyrethrum spray collections, Man-biting collections, and Animal-biting collection. Immature stages of mosquitoes were collected from variety of habitats including springs, irrigation channels, rice fields, marshes, temporary pools, construction pools, agriculture pools, river margins, ditches, waste water drains, wells and tree holes. During the study most of the species built up their populations in June, July and August, while a few increased their populations in September. During the survey of immature stages, from a total of 138 samples taken, Cx. quinquefasciatus showed maximum frequency of occurrence (recovered from 48 samples) followed by An. maculatus (17 samples), Cx. pseudovishnui (14 samples), An. annularis and An. stephensi (13 samples each), Cx. bitaeniorhynchus (11 samples), An. splendidus (5 samples) and Cx. theileri (4 samples). The rest of the species occurred infrequently. The observations on habitat specificity of different species of mosquitoes showed the rice fields as the most favorable site for mosquito breeding (harboring 12 species) followed by river margins (five species) and temporary pools and springs (four species each). During this study Ae. aegypti was recovered from tyres in Mingora; it was not reported earlier from Swat.