Eliminate mosquitoes by eliminating stagnant water

1. Gutters

This is at the top of the list because almost all houses have gutters and almost all homeowners hate to clean them out. Check for blocked gutters weekly if you have a lot of trees nearby. If gutter status is hard to see, buy a drone to facilitate inspections. If you can’t afford a drone just get an extra-long, telescoping selfie stick for your smartphone.

2. Flexible downspout extenders

Flexible downspout extenders are ~~almost~~ perfect for breeding mosquitoes — the ridges hold water and trap organic matter, the black absorbs heat from sunlight (thus speeding development), and female mosquitoes of several species just adore ovipositing inside plastic objects. They are especially bad if nestled in shrubs and ground cover. Note that they hold water even if they are sloped downward. Get rid of them. All of them.

3. Tarps

If you leave a tarp in your yard, you’ve created lots of nooks in which water and debris will accumulate. I frequently see tarps covering soggy logs that owners seem to have no real intention of ever splitting and burning. I think people view tarps as cloaks of invisibility, magically hiding loathsome to-do items from spouse.

4. Kid equipment

Sandbox toys, sleds, wagons, and kiddie pools seem as if they were specifically designed to breed mosquitoes. I.e., even when stored upside down they have nooks that collect enough rainwater to breed mosquitoes. Store them in the garage. If you think covering them with a tarp will work, please see #3.

5. Bird baths

Everyone should have a bird bath. But if you do, you need to either have a water bubbler/agitator (mosquitoes hate that) or you need to kill the larvae by adding granules of Bacillus thuringiensis var israelensis (abbreviated, Bti). Bti is extremely effective: you can add it a container that has thousands wriggling of larvae (see movie) and they will all be dead within hours. Just add it every two weeks and your bath will always be mosquito free. But don’t forget — make yourself a smartphone reminder or write on paper calendar.

6. Trash and recycling bins

If you can’t store your trash and recycling containers under a roofed area, keep a lid on them. I found the ones below behind a local church. Tens of thousands of larvae within.

7. Watering cans

Watering cans are rarely transparent so you can’t see the mosquito larvae inside, but they are present if you leave them around the yard when it’s been raining a lot. Store them empty, in garage.

8. Wheelbarrows

Just keep them propped up vertically so they don’t accumulate rain water. Or drill holes.

9. Rain barrels

Just put screening over the top. Or add Bti every other week. I don’t recommend adding mosquito-eating fish because they die when water level gets low (plus the fish suffer before dying).

10. Pot saucers

Pot saucers are unneeded outside so it’s easy to eliminate them. If you like them for decorative reasons you’ll need to add Bti regularly. It’s better to just get rid of them because you’ll eventually forget. You know you will.

Other places where mosquitoes breed

Below are photographs of stagnant water I’ve noticed around my town. On my list of photographs to add: bromeliad, pool cover, bottle cap.

Recycling bin lid
Buckets at community garden
Garbage bags
Upside-down sprinklers
Pool floats
Plastic mulch sheets
Driveway potholes
Fire pits
Bamboo garden stakes
Bamboo culm stumps
Tree holes
Sump pump outflows
Uncovered dumpsters
Uncapped traffic barriers
Basketball hoop ballasts

Templates for better posters

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There’s been a frenzy of discussion on Twitter this summer about conference poster design (see #betterposter, #betterposters, #butterposter) so perhaps it’s a good time to re-share my Powerpoint templates. You just download, then replace the existing text with your own. All assume that you have a catchy graphic — that goes where the yellow box is. The text you replace contains basic tips but ignore the advice if you’re a pro. If you’re new to posters please see my page, “Designing conference posters” for details.

About that graphic: I strongly believe that it should be large and self-explanatory so that a viewer could follow your approach, results, and conclusions without you needing to explain a thing. If you have a graphic that is too complex (or poorly designed), a poster might not be the right venue for you.

Below is a standard horizontal template. Note that there is no requirement for the text boxes to have a line around them — it’s easy to set line width to zero. And if you want to delete the background color (gray, here), you can eliminate the “rectangles within rectangles” look. Totally up to you.

Here’s a template that moves the Literature cited, Acknowledgements, and Further information to the far right column … which causes the Materials & methods and Results areas to have more room. But the Conclusions box gets squished (such is geometry).

Here’s a template that might work for a humanities topic. I’ve chosen to have a question/result/conclusion flow (from left to right) inside the main arena, but you can always rearrange. There are also no rules about section names — just redo those, too.

The final template is a portrait-style one. For this orientation I think it’s critical to put the least important sections on the very bottom (that position is really hard to read without stooping).

If you’d like to read an article about the frenzy, here’s one from Inside Higher Education in which I’m quoted a few times.

The astute reader will notice that I haven’t promoted the use of QR codes. I used to have that suggestion on all my templates but I removed it years ago for two reasons. First, people who included a QR code said that it was never used and was a waste of space. They felt like a dork, and blamed me. Second, and more importantly, displaying a QR codes sets the normative behavior about photographing a poster, and that’s a problem because there are always presenters who do not want their posters photographed and shared online (that happens). If you want to give somebody more detailed information about your research, bring a handout to peddle. If you adore QR codes, just print business cards that have your name, poster title, email address, and QR code — then leave them all in an envelope pinned next to your poster (“Please take one!”).

That said, there is a place for QR codes in designing posters. For example, you could include the code below (for URL to this blog post) in a presentation on poster design. Just tell audience members to point phone camera at it.

Happy posterizing!

How to protect yourself from ticks

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I spend a lot of time outside, sometimes face-down in the weeds trying to get a photograph of something small. So I have some opinions about tick prevention and thought I’d share.

blacklegged (deer) tick on sock — Ixodes scapularis

Spray or soak shoes, socks, pants, shirts, hairband, hat, etc., with permethrin (buy online or at outdoor stores), then let dry before you using. Chemical only slowly washes out so you only need to reapply every 5th laundering or so (or after 5 months if you don’t wash your clothes). Spray your backpack with permethrin, too, because you likely set that on the ground during breaks. Do not spray permethrin on your skin. You can also buy clothing that comes pretreated with permethrin.
Spray your clothes and skin with DEET, picaridin, para-menthane-3,8-diol, IR3535, or 2-undecanone. DEET really is the best. Note that “pure” oil of lemon eucalyptus (extracted from Corymbia citriodora) is not currently recommended by the CDC; the oil has small, variable levels of para-menthane-3,8-diol but apparently not enough. All of these repellents do not last like permethrin so reapply every few hours. Do not spray DEET on anything plastic (it will melt).
Be suspicious of “natural” or “organic” concoctions that claim to effectively deter ticks. If one of these recipes actually works the CDC would recommend it. I’ll update this page when that happens. Similarly, avoid apps, crystals, and dietary supplements. If you need help convincing a friend to just use DEET (it’s super safe), mention that DDT is a different chemical that just happens to start with the same letter. DEET is also gluten and GMO free.
Wear light-colored clothing so you can better see ticks. Like this person. Note that this strategy fails with tick larvae because they just too small to see unless you are wearing something pure white and have really good vision.
Tuck your pants into your socks. Like Kanye West. You can even buy tick socks that are treated with permethrin and have a tight weave that prevents larvae from burrowing through the fabric.
Wear tall, light-colored, glossy boots that ticks can’t easily climb. I suspect that larvae and nymphs can still climb glossy surfaces, though. I own a pair of Muck Boots and they have a neoprene surface that I suspect ticks can easily scale. I’m considering switching to something like a Gumleaf boot.
Buy some gaiters and treat them with permethrin. Some gaiters are even designed to keep out ticks. Some even come in lime green. (NB: Lyme disease is named after Lyme, CT.)
Buy some arm sleeves. Like gaiters, you can even buy ones that are already infused with permethrin.
Shave your legs.
Keep checking for ticks as you hike. If you are hiking with others, scan them for ticks, too.
Keep a roll of duct tape handy so that you can easily remove ticks. Travel-sized lint rollers are good, too, and easily attach with a carabiner to a backpack.
Put your field clothes into quarantine when you come home. Ideally, launder them immediately. Ticks can wander off of clothing and backpacks and show up later.
Get naked and check for ticks. Everywhere. This is a really good reason to get a girlfriend or boyfriend even if you’re not really into them. Don’t tell them that.
If you have limited neck mobility, invest in a nice automotive inspection mirror so you can see all the various parts of your body you never look at. You can even buy lighted ones. You can also use a selfie stick and a smart phone, but that’s risky if you accidentally forget to delete the photographs and video.
You probably don’t want to know this but ticks are fond of lodging in ears. Get yourself an otoscope if you feel something in there. You can even buy phone attachments to get pics.
If you find a tick that is attached, take a photograph (like this) then remove the tick. Carefully. I have a Tick Key (see one in action) but there are lots of types. Then take photographs of the bite location and of the tick. If you live in Pennsylvania, send the tick out for free testing. If you live elsewhere, put the tick in vodka or in the freezer in case you need to get it tested later.
Take a long hot bath with a lot of soap. Ticks are hardy but you might dislodge an unattached nymph that somehow got past your first-line defenses.
Once you are de-ticked and clean and have the laundry running, post photograph of tick on iNaturalist so you can get an identification. Here are the ticks of North America on iNaturalist. You can also send pics of ticks to TickEncounter for ID.
Monitor the attachment spot closely. If a red spot appears, take daily photographs with ruler in frame so that doctor can assess progress of redness. Here are pics of Lyme rashes. You can even mark the progress with a Sharpie. There are plenty of other diseases transmitted by ticks, though, so don’t rely on rashes.

Colin Purrington

nature photography / natural history / misc