Details - Public Health Image Library(PHIL)

ID#:

7956

Caption:

This 2005 photograph depicted a close-up, anterior view of a female Culex tarsalis mosquito, as it was about to begin feeding, after having landed on the skin of what would become its human host. Note the light-colored band wrapped around its dark-scaled proboscis, and though not noticeably apparent, if you look closely, the multiple, similarly light-colored bands wrapped around its distal appendages, i.e., the tibia and femur, of its forelegs and middle pair of legs, identifying this as C. tarsalis. The epidemiologic importance of C. tarsalis lies in its ability to spread Western equine encephalitis (WEE), St. Louis encephalitis (SLE), and California encephalitis, and at the time of this image creation, was the main vector of West Nile virus (WNV) in the western United States.