Ovitraps, or oviposition traps, are designed to collect the eggs laid by mosquitoes. They mimic the preferred breeding site for container breeding mosquitoes, and can be used for surveillance purposes to identify mosquito hotpots, assess the risk of arbovirus transmission, or to optimize vector control activities. 

In addition to allowing eggs to be counted, they can be modified to be lethal to either the ovipositing female, the immature stages of the mosquitoes that develop in the trap, or adults that emerge inside the trap, and so act as a form of vector control[1]. 

Lethal ovitraps incorporate an insecticide on the oviposition substrate, contact with which kills the female laying eggs. Similarly, sticky ovitraps kill adult mosquitos when they land to lay eggs[2]. Other ovitraps do not kill the adult mosquito but prevent development of larvae to adulthood by mechanical means or larvicides. If these traps are used in sufficient numbers and are frequently serviced, they can have an impact on mosquito population densities[3].

 

References

  1. World Health Organisation. Dengue Control: Research: Lethal Ovitraps. Available at https://www.who.int/denguecontrol/research/en/

  2. Use of the CDC Autocidal Gravid Ovitrap to Control and Prevent Outbreaks of Aedes aegypti (Diptera: Culicidae). Barrera et al., 2014. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4631065/

  3. Rapley LP, Johnson PH, Williams CR, Silcock RM, Larkman M, Long SA, Russell RC, Ritchie SA. A lethal ovitrap‐based mass trapping scheme for dengue control in Australia: II. Impact on populations of the mosquito Aedes aegypti. Medical and veterinary entomology. 2009 Dec;23(4):303-16. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1365-2915.2009.00834.x