Yellow Fever Mosquito

The yellow fever mosquito is a small, dark mosquito species native to sub-Saharan Africa but now established throughout tropical and subtropical regions worldwide, recognized by the distinctive white, lyre-shaped markings on the top of its thorax and the black-and-white banded pattern on its legs. It is one of the most medically significant mosquito species in the world, serving as the primary vector for several major viral diseases, including yellow fever, dengue, Zika and chikungunya, transmitted when a female mosquito, which alone requires a blood meal to develop her eggs, feeds on an infected host and later bites another person. Unlike many mosquito species, it is a daytime biter, most active in the hours around dawn and dusk, and it breeds prolifically in small pockets of standing water found around human dwellings, such as discarded containers, tires and water storage vessels, making it especially well adapted to spreading disease in and around towns and cities. Because of the serious public health burden of the diseases it transmits, the yellow fever mosquito is the target of extensive global surveillance, vector control and, increasingly, experimental biological control efforts such as releasing mosquitoes altered to reduce disease transmission or suppress wild populations.