Do mosquito larvae eat daphnia?

[Otterwoman]

Do mosquito larvae eat daphnia? I'm trying to grow daphnia outside and there are some m. larvae in there now, and I need to know if that's a disaster or not.

 

[Greatwtehunter]

Mosquito larvae eat algae and small organisms, so I would assume newly hatched daphnia would be on their menu.

 

[caleb]

Mosquito larvae eat algae and small organisms, so I would assume newly hatched daphnia would be on their menu.

I suspect even newly hatched Daphnia would be far too large for mosquito larvae to eat. Daphnia & mosquito larvae certainly co-exist in large numbers in some of the waterbodies I collect food from.

 

[SludgeMunkey]

I too thought they were predatory, however John called me out on this in another recent thread.

Good thing he did too, because I was very wrong.

After doing some research, almost all mosquito larvae are filter feeders. Microscopic algae and bacteria are their mainstay. It appears even newly hatched moina are too big to fit the menu of most species. There are a handful of VERY large mosquitoes that could handle D. pulex adults, but they are pretty scattered in the tropics.

Thank you John for getting me into the books.