What preservation step is required when shipping mosquito larvae?

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When you’re shipping mosquito larvae, you need both a quick end to their metabolism and a stable way to preserve their anatomy for identification. Using hot water to kill them does this efficiently and humanely, stopping biological activity without overly distorting tissues. Immediately after, placing the larvae in 75–80% ethanol fixes their tissues and prevents decay, while preserving the features researchers rely on to identify them. Ethanol at this concentration is a standard, practical preservative for small aquatic arthropods and is far safer and easier to ship than formalin. Alternatives like air-drying would ruin fine structures and coloration, and freezing can alter tissue texture in ways that hinder identification. So the two-step method of hot-water euthanization followed by ethanol preservation provides reliable, ship-friendly specimen preservation.