Hard to believe it is July 1st! The summer is half way over – and my birthday has come and gone…
My internship is going well. Basically, we are learning more in-depth about mosquitoes – both identification and anatomy/physiology of them, along with collection methods and surveying/checking out complaints.
For collections, we use several types of traps – which include a light trap with CO2 (dry ice), light trap with a lure (bait), and sentinel trap (large black trap with an inverted collection bag). Each of these traps appear to attract different amounts of mosquitoes (and other insects) and species of mosquitoes. We also use dippers, which is a method used to gather larvae samples to ID or send off to Western Carolina for further use.
ID’ing has turned out not to be as bad as I had originally thought. We were taught by looking backwards for original characteristics (using the manual) and told which specific features to look for. I definitely enjoyed how C.S has passion when it comes to teaching us the characteristics of the different species. She becomes very animated and uses sound effects when explaining it.
The other aspect (public health) is going to check out the sites where complaints are coming from – the first one we went to was at the Purdue Chicken Plant – and I only went on the first visit – where we went all the way around wood lines. We also saw someone with a large tent set up that was very elaborate in the middle of the woods. The other visit was a neighborhood with mixture of trailers and modular homes. This was an interesting adventure to say the least – I ended up on the side with some questionable houses. Tuesday, me and T left notes about checking the properties later in the week and Thursday – all of us followed up by looking for larvae, using the dipping method to collect any if found, and letting the residents know what we had found and what they needed to. Some were quick to tell us who had mosquitoes in their yard or that they didn’t have any.
We have also contributed data and on Wednesday – we were introduced to 5 department heads and C.S. presented what we are doing and what we have found thus far (I was glad not to have to get up and present).
Definitely looking forward to what the rest of the summer has in store!!!!
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