Deadliest Animals with the Thinnest Wings: Near-Infrared Properties of Tropical Mosquitoes.

ABSTRACT: Tropical mosquitoes transmit diseases like malaria, yellow fever, and Zika. Classifying mosquitoes by species, sex, age, and gravidity offers vital insights for assessing transmission risk and effective mitigations. Photonic monitoring for mosquito classification can be used in distributed sensors or lidars on longer ranges. However, a reflectance model and its parameters are lacking in the current literature. This study investigates mosquitoes of different species, sexes, age groups, and gravidity states, and reports metric pathlengths of wing chitin, body melanin, and water. We use hyperspectral push-broom imaging and laser multiplexing with a rotation stage to measure near-infrared spectra from different angles and develop simple models for spectral reflectance, including wing thickness

SUBMITTER: Li M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12569131 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature