The difference in the instar composition of immature mosquitoes sampled by three sampling techniques

Three techniques, namely a ladle, a metal quadrat and a D-shaped aquatic net, were used for comparison to sample immature stages of mosquitoes in woodland pools in northern England. The quadrat proved to be more reliable in giving a more accurate representation of the different instar proportions in the ponds than the ladle and aquatic net. The ladle showed bias of undersampling the earlier instars. Similar but not so severe bias also occurred for the D-net.