Description of Culicospora
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Life cycle (of C. restuans) polymorphic with monokaryotic and diplokaryotic stages involving successive generations of one host species; two types of spores; infection of larvae is initiated by ingestion of uninucleate spores and starts in fat body and oenocytes of larvae; merogony is by binary fission of monokaryotic cells; in adults of parental generation: usually after a blood meal, the final meronts become spindle-shaped sporonts and produce thin-walled, diplokaryotic, slightly curved, cylindrical spores, 11.0 x 4.4 µm with a polaroplast of lamellar and vesicular regions, and an isofilar polar tube with only 1 or 2 coils; spores germinate to infect oocytes and thus infect the filial generation which produces spores, 12.0 - 16.5 x 4.6 µm, are monokaryotic, thin-walled and lanceolate with compartmentalised polaroplast and isofilar polar tube with about 12 coils; these spores are responsible for horizontal (per os) transmission to new larvae; type species C. magna (Kudo, 1920) Weiser, 1977 in tissues of larvae and adults of successive generations of species of Culex (Diptera, Culicidae).
