Inheritance of resistance to fenthion in Culex pipiens fatigans Wied

The insecticide fenthion, which shows great promise for controlling the filariasis vector Culex pipiens fatigans, has been found in the laboratory to induce a certain amount of resistance. As the biochemical nature of fenthion resistance was known to be due to an increase in a particular esterase activity, the inheritance of the character was investigated in the present study. It was found to be mainly due to a single slightly recessive gene associated with linkage-group 2, and the increase in detoxifying esterase activity showed a similar inheritance.