Mosquito control in the Zagreb area has been conducted for many years, whereas the fauna has only been investigated in the last 20 years. So far 30 mosquito species have been detected in the city area. Culex pipiens form molestus is the dominant mosquito species in indoor breeding sites. In forested areas and areas exposed to flooding, the active period is early spring and the dominant species are Ochlerotatus sticticus, Ochlerotatus cantans, Ochlerotatus geniculatus and Aedes vexans. The eudominant mosquito species found in the artificial breeding sites are Culex pipiens and the Asian tiger mosquito, Aedes albopictus. Invasive Ae. albopictus, present in the Zagreb area since 2004, has expanded to a larger area of the city during the last three years. The recent emergence of the human West Nile virus and Usutu virus neuroinvasive disease in Zagreb and its surroundings highlighted the role of mosquitoes as vectors of emerging arboviruses. The paper focuses on mosquito species and arboviral infections detected in humans and animals in the Zagreb area, Croatia.

Improvement of morphological and molecular identification methods allows the detection of new species of mosquitoes. The mosquito fauna of Croatia currently includes 52 species, belonging to eight genera, including Anopheles (12 species), Aedes (24 species), Coquillettidia (one species), Culex (seven species), Culiseta (six species), Orthopodomyia (one species), and Uranotaenia (one species). This is an updated checklist, which includes five new species found in Croatian mosquito fauna. Two of these are invasive mosquito species, Aedes albopictus (Skuse, 1895) and Aedes japonicus (Theobald 1901), which are spreading across Europe and Croatia. The other three species, Culex laticinctus (Edwards 1913), Culex torrentium (Martini 1925), and Anopheles daciae (Linton, Nicolescu & Harbach 2004) are autochthonous species which haven't been recorded so far. Since there are several more invasive species spreading across Europe, we assume that this is not the final list.

The ten year research (1995)(1996)(1997)(1998)(1999)(2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004) of adult mosquitoes in the area of Osijek by dry ice baited CDC traps has provided significant information on mosquito species, species prevalence, their dynamics and seasonal activity. A total of 207,136 adult mosquitoes comprising twenty species belonging to the following genera: Anopheles, Ochlerotatus, Aedes, Culex, Coquillettidia, Culiseta and Uranotaenia were collected. The seven most common species collected during this study were: Aedes vexans (75.6%), Ochlerotatus sticticus (13.3%), Culex pipiens complex (5.9%), Anopheles maculipennis complex (1.9%), Oc. cantans (0.9%), Oc. caspius (0.6%) and Oc. excrucians (0.6%). The temporal changes in the relative abundance of the twenty mosquito species in the Osijek area were reflected in three peaks: in May, July and September. Seasonal population dynamics differed between years and between mosquito species in relation to wetland, urban and forest habitats and was influenced by water level of the Drava and the Danube rivers.

The invasive seed beetle Megabruchidius tonkineus (Pic, 1904) is an agricultural pest native to the east Asian region that was first recorded in Europe (Germany) in the 1980s. There are further recent reports of this species from Bulgaria, France, Hungary, Russia, Serbia and Switzerland. Megabruchidius tonkineus resides in the seed pods of gleditsia triacanthos L. (Fabaceae) and is recorded for the first time in Croatia in our study. The general morphological, biological and distributional features of this invasive species are given. Invazivna vrsta sjemenarki porijeklom iz orijentalne Azije Megabruchidius tonkineus (pic, 1904), nađena je po prvi puta u Hrvatskoj u mahunama gledičije (gleditsia triachantos L.). Prvi nalaz ove vrste u Europi zabilježen je 80-ih godina prošloga stoljeća u Njemačkoj, međutim odnedavno postoje dokazi da se ta vrsta ustalila u Bugarskoj, Francuskoj, Mađarskoj, Srbiji i Švicarskoj. U radu su prikazana osnovna morfološka i biološka obilježja vrste kao i njezina rasprostranjenostna području Istočne Hrvatske.

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