Alternative methods to control blood-sucking mosquitoes (Diptera:Culicidae) (review)

The paper provides an analysis of domestic and foreign literature data on the safest and most environ-mentally friendly methods of combating blood-sucking diptera mosquitoes (Diptera: Culicidae) – carriers of various infectious and invasive diseases of humans and animals. The method of exterminating mosquitoes through the use of insecticides based on essential oils and plant extracts has been widely studied. The active components of such compounds – terpenoids (monoterpenes, diterpenes, sesquiterpenes), phenylpropanoids, benzoids and others, have a repellent and insecticidal effect against adults and mosquitoes at the larval stage. One of the effective methods of exterminating the imago of blood-sucking dipterans is the use of traps with attractants that attract mosquitoes, which capture them or kill them by means of electricity. Mosquito control is most effective at the larval stage, since, in comparison with adult insects, individuals are the least mobile and their distribution is limited within their aquatic ecosystem. For the destruction of mosquito larvae, in addition to plant insecticides, biological control agents are used, such as aquatic predatory invertebrates, as natural enemies of insects, growth regulators such as the hormone methoprene and a chitin synthesis inhibitor (CHI), which inhibit the morphogenesis of the larva, entomopathogenic fungi, spores of which penetrate into the insect's body and damage it from the inside, as well as microbiological larvicides based on the stamps of the bacteria Bacillus thuringiensis israelensis (Bti) and Bacillus sphaericus (Bs), which release crystalline proteins toxic to larvae or δ-endotoxins that damage the epithelium of the insect's midgut.