The book also tells the story of some of the mosquito species that contribute to human diseases such as malaria, filariasis,dengue, Zika, chikungunya, and Japanese encephalitis. These diseases have played an important role in slowing down the national progress through depleted economy, healthand intelligentsia. The country spends almost 50% of its health budget in fighting against these ailments. Therefore, it emerges that, besides the brutal facts of how the mosquito has insinuated itself into human history, from the malaria that devastated invaders of ancient Rome (Alexander ‘The Great’had reportedly died due to Plasmodium falciparum malaria while returning home after the battle with the Indian king Poru in the malaria infested Punjab region),the story of man's struggle to live with the mosquito, from the early 19th Century malaria-defeat inMian Mir under direct charge of DrSamuel Rickard Christophers, who advocated to Dr Ronalad Ross’s theory of ‘environment sanitation’,to the malaria-deaths of hundreds of rural inhabitants living in The Thar Desert’s irrigated Command Area under the world famous Indira Gandhi Nahar Pariyojana, in the early 1990s,and to the recent panic over the chikungunya virus’ in Kerala, as well as many other States and Union Territories, crippling thousands of people, in 2006, and deaths from dengue all over the country during 2012-14, need to be told to the modern generation of medical entomologists and vector-borne disease specialists to relive the moments of victories and defeats in this vicious age-old battle between man andmosquito. At the end we find that we have only ourselves to be blamed to a great extent for accelerating the spread of mosquitoes and the diseases they transmit; with climate change and increased international travel, mosquito-borne illnesses are flaring up all over the globe. Catastrophic failures of mosquito control have ensured that worldwide even now one person dies of malaria every twelve seconds. This book describes, ina mosquito's-eye view, how mosquito breeds, rests, feeds, flies, mate, and dies, besidesinteraction with her natural enemies. The book also deals with the current constraints and future control prospects of mosquito control. In view of the increasing resistance to insecticides and chemotherapy, the book throws light on the subject of greatest promise to ending mosquitoes' deadly assault on man by render them impotent by genetic manipulation by replacing them through paratransgenesis involving micro-organisms such as bacteria and fungi. Contents: • Dedication • Foreword • Preface • Acknowledgement • Glossary • Prologue 1. MOSQUITO – THE ‘FEMME FATALE’ 1.1.Introduction 1.2.Mosquitoes are both ugly and beautiful 1.3.Mosquitoes have some good siblings too 1.4.Why does a mosquito bite itch? 1.5.Change in vector behaviour inducing new disease paradigm 1.6.Intensification of vectorism: emergence of Aedesalbopictus as a main vector of dengue in Kerala State (India) 1.7.Is it a good philosophy to annihilate mosquitoes? 2. MOSQUITO BODY - MORPHOLOGY AND TAXONOMY 2.1 Introduction 2.2 General body plan 2.3 Classification 2.4 Life Cycle 2.5 Mosquitoes’ blood-feeding behaviour 2.6 Reproduction 3. BIOMEDICALLY IMPORTANT MOSQUITOES: VECTOR DIVERSITY 3.1 Introduction 3.2 Biology of important mosquitoes 4. MOSQUITO AND DISEASES – DEADLY AND DEBILITATING 4.1 Introduction 4.2 Mosquito-borne Diseases in India 5. MOSQUITOES OF INDIA – VECTORS AND PESTS OF PUBLIC AND VETERINARY IMPORTANCE 5.1 Introduction 5.2 CATALOGUE OF INDIAN MOSQUITOES 6. IDENTIFICATION KEYS FOR INDIAN VECTOR MOSQUITOES–4TH INSTAR LARVA AND ADULT 6.1 Introduction 6.2 Larval Characters 6.3 Vectors of Japanese Encephalitis in India 6.4. Adult Keys 7. WORLD’S FOREMOST ANTI-MOSQUITO CRUSADERS OUTSIDE INDIA – 19TH CENTURY 8. MOSQUITO TERMINATORS OF INDIA – AN EXTRAORDINARY LEAGUE OF CULICIDOLOGISTS 8.1 Introduction 8.2 The mosquito ambushers 1 Ronald Ross 2 F.V. Theobald 3 S.R. Christophers 4 P.J. Barraud 5 Major Idie 6 S.P. James 7 W.G. Liston 8 D.S. Turkhud 9 T.N. Annandale 10 J.W.W. Stephens 11 G. Covell 12 G.M. Giles 13 G. MacDonald 14 J.A. Sinton 15 P.F. Russell 16 H.E. Shortt 17 I.M. Puri 18 A.P. Ray 19 T.R. Rao 20 M.O.T. Iyengar 21 D.K. Viswanathan 22 J. Singh 23 T.N. Ananthakrishnan 24 M.I.D. Sharma 25 R. Pal 26 C.F. Curtis 27 G.B. White 28 V.P. Sharma 29 P.K. Rajagopalan 30 Rachel Reuben 31 B.L. Wall 32 N.L. Kalra 33 Sarala K. Subbarao 34 P.K. Das 35 Senior White 36 W.C. Sweet 37 R. Rajagopal 38 A.P. Dash 39 R. Rajendran 40 I.P. Sunish 41 S.C. Tewari 42 J. Hiriyan 43 R.S. Sharma 44 Kaushal Kumar 45 P.K. Srivastava 46 Vijay Veer 47 Shri Prakash 48 Jagbir Singh 49 Reddya Naoik 50 Sajal 51 Sabesan 52 Jambulingam 53 Ashwani Kumar 54 S.K. Ghosh 55 B.K. Tyagi 9. NOTEWORTHY INDIAN DISCOVERIES AND INVENTIONS ON MOSQUITOES 9.1 Introduction 9.2 Dr Ronald Ross’s discovery of oocysts in the midgut of an Anopheles mosquito 9.3 JSB Stain for malarial parasites 9.4 Pupae separator 9.5 Mosquito Sampler 9.6 Transfer of Technologies 9.7 ‘Tanka’ lid 9.8 N,N-diethylphenylacetamide (DEPA): 9.9 Discovery of Anopheles pseudosundaicus Tyagi et al.,2009 9.10 Discovery of Aedes albopictus as the primary and all important vector of dengue in Kerala State, India 9.11 AlboTyag – An Aedes albopictus breeding preventer in rubber plantation latex-collecting cup in Kerala 9.12 Coining the term “Desert Malaria” 10. THE MOSQUITO THEORIES 10.1 Introduction 10.2 The mosquito theory of filariasis 10.3 The mosquito theory of yellow fever 10.4 The mosquito theory of dengue fever 10.5 The mosquito theory of encephalitis 10.6 The mosquito theory of Zika 11. MAN-MOSQUITO: FACE OFF 11.1 Introductio 11.2 Prelude to the ‘Great Malaria-Mosquito War’ 11.3 The Nobel Prize factor 11.4 The Italian folly 11.5 Mosquitoes under suspicion 11.6 Mosquitoes under scrutiny 11.7 The international competition 11.8 Mosquito-malaria world war of priority and primacy 12. MAN’S HEROICS AGAINST THE MOSQUITO – EXAMPLES OF SUCCESS AND FAILURE 12.1 Introduction 12.2 The successes 12.3 The Failures 13. VECTOR CONTROL AND FUTURE NOVEL TECHNOLOGIES 13.1 Introduction 13.2 Need for alternative strategies 13.3 Chemical-based measures 13.4 Non-chemical measures 13.5 Biological control agents 13.6 Repellents 13.7 Insect Traps 13.8 Strategies based on genetic manipulation 13.9 Integrated vector control strategy .