Sizing sex in early developmental stages in a frog-biting mosquito

<p>Sexual size variation in adult holometabolous insects may arise from selection pressures impacting ontogenetic stages associated with diverse habitats and resource use. In addition, scaling relations of these sexually size dimorphic traits play an important role in morphological diversification. In mosquitoes, given the differences in feeding strategies between the sexes, investigations of the ontogeny of sexually dimorphic traits are of particular interest to understanding their reproductive biology and implementing early sex-separating technologies for vector control. However, our current knowledge of the morphological scaling of body parts across males and females is centered around a few, well-known species of anthropophilic mosquitoes. In general, there is a noticeable gap in our understanding of the developmental biology of mosquitoes with limited medical consequences. One such mosquito is <em>Uranotaenia lowii</em> (Diptera: Culicidae), a species of growing interest due to its unique host use of feeding exclusively on frogs by eavesdropping on their mating calls. This study takes a step forward toward filling this gap by investigating morphometrical allometry of sexual size dimorphic traits during the ontogeny of <em>Ur. lowii</em>. We examined larval and pupal stages to focus on traits that allow sex identification to evaluate various sex-sorting techniques that provide a foundation for experimental manipulation. This research sheds light on the biology of <em>Ur. lowii,</em> an understudied mosquito species, and establishes the groundwork for future investigations addressing the developmental and reproductive biology of frog-biting mosquitoes.</p>