Yellow Fever Mosquitoes Air a Killer on Magnum's A Kiss Before Dying

Summary: Yellow fever mosquitoes air a killer on Magnum's A Kiss Before Dying March 11, 2019, re-aired Sept. 13, 2019, as they abound around certain ambiences.

female yellowfever mosquito (Aedes aegypti), with characteristic lyre-shaped marking on dorsal surface of scutum, acquires blood-meal from human host; 2006 image, from Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention's Public Health Image Library (PHIL), identification number #9258, by CDC scientific photographer James Gathany: Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Yellow fever mosquitoes air a killer on Magnum's A Kiss Before Dying crime action drama television series episode March 11, 2019, re-aired Sept. 13, 2019, as they abound around certain Hawaiian ambiences.

Director Bryan Spicer and writers Ashley Charbonnet and Barbie Kligman bare who brutalized and buried a Honolulu Police Department (HPD) detective and his dog and why. The first season's 18th episode considers Mike Trevino Jr.'s (Deniz Akdeniz) concerted cover-up of one perhaps accidental crime with the calculated commission of two conscious crimes. Dead yellow fever mosquitoes, described as dengue fever mosquitoes, divulge for private investigator Thomas Magnum (Jay Hernandez) where Detective Gordon Katsumoto's (Tim Kang) HPD mentor died.

Not one of six mosquito species ensconced as two day-biting and four night-biting exotics exists as endemically (from Greek ἐν, "in" and δῆμος, "people"), exclusively Hawaiian.

Twenty-seven- to 49-plus-day life cycles of the chikungunya-, dengue fever-, Mayaro-, yellow fever- and Zika fever-fomenting mosquito features subtropical and tropical-region year-round and temperate-region warm-weather breedability.

Adult females in the final life-cycle stage as mature fliers generate maximally five separate 100- to 200-egg batches after they maximally get five separate blood meals. Damp surfaces, such as containers and tree holes in farm and grove, sylvan (from Latin silvānus, "from woods, of woods") and urban habitats hold single-laid eggs. Each oval, smooth, 0.039-inch- (1-millimeter-) long egg is initially white, then shiny black for the two to seven days before hatching initiates the four-instar larval stage.

Larval yellow fever mosquitoes journey vertically underwater, as oxygen-breathing, short-siphon wigglers and wrigglers, through three two-day-long and the fourth three-day-long instars (from Latin instar, "form, likeness").

Water-holders such as puddles and tires keep bottom-feeding, surface-dwelling larvae healthy with edible algal organic particulate matter and microscopic organisms through 0.32-inch- (8-millimeter-) long fourth instars.

Larval stages last longer for female wigglers than male wrigglers, lengthen for all with cooler temperatures and lead to pupal stages as mobile, non-feeding, stimuli-responsive tumblers. Ingested air makes their abdomens expand sufficiently to move two-day-old pupae (from Latin pūpa, "girl") out as completely metamorphosed, 0.16- to 0.28-inch (4- to 7-millimeter) adults. Culicidae (from Latin culex, "gnat, midge" and Greek -ειδής, "-like") family members named Aedes aegypti (from Latin aedēs, "tomb" and aegyptī, "Egyptian") scientifically net pointed-tip abdomens.

Yellow fever mosquitoes, observed by Fredrik Hasselquist (Jan. 3, 1722-Feb. 9, 1752) and Carl Linnaeus (May 23, 1707-Jan. 10, 1778), obtain dark heads, bodies and legs.

Black, black-brown legs and thoracic (from Greek θώραξ, "breastplate"), sometimes abdominal uppersides respectively possess white-banded tarsi (from Greek ταρσός, "flat drying-frame") and lyre-shaped, violin-shaped white scales.

Adult females and males queue up black, black-brown proboscises (from Greek προβοσκίς, "elephant's trunk") below clypeus (from Latin clipeus, "round shield") segments with two white-scaled clusters. The female versus the smaller-sized male reveal blood-feeding, sharp-pointed fascicles (from fasciculus, "little bundle") and silver-tripped or white-scaled palpi (from Latin palpus, "feeler") versus nectar-feeding mouthparts. All four life-cycle stages, since their multidirectional spreads from African continental homelands, survive in subtropical and tropical sections year-round and in temperate sections during summer months.

Female yellow fever mosquitoes transmit painful, sometimes terminal viruses through blood-meal transfusions from human ankles and elbows even as their one good deed traps a killer.

HPD (Honolulu Police Department) Detective Gordon Katsumoto (Tim Kang), Juliet Higgins (Perdita Weeks) and Thomas Magnum (Jay Hernandez) watch as HPD Medical Examiner Noelani Cunha (Kimee Balmilero) scrutinizes a gravesite in Magnum PI's A Kiss Before Dying (season 1 episode 18): What2Vue @What2Vue, via Twitter March 11, 2019

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

female yellowfever mosquito (Aedes aegypti), with characteristic lyre-shaped marking on dorsal surface of scutum, acquires blood-meal from human host; 2006 image, from Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention's Public Health Image Library (PHIL), identification number #9258, by CDC scientific photographer James Gathany: Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Aedes_aegypti_CDC-Gathany.jpg; Public Domain, via CDC PHIL @ https://phil.cdc.gov/Details.aspx?pid=9258

HPD (Honolulu Police Department) Detective Gordon Katsumoto (Tim Kang), Juliet Higgins (Perdita Weeks) and Thomas Magnum (Jay Hernandez) watch as HPD Medical Examiner Noelani Cunha (Kimee Balmilero) scrutinizes a gravesite in Magnum PI's A Kiss Before Dying (season 1 episode 18): What2Vue @What2Vue, via Twitter March 11, 2019, @ https://twitter.com/What2Vue/status/1105182360713285633

For further information:

"A Kiss Before Dying." Magnum PI: The First Season. Los Angeles CA: Paramount Pictures Corporation, Oct. 22, 2018.

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Hasselquists, Fredric. 1757. "121. Culex (æsgypti)." Pages 430-431. In: Iter Palæstinum, eller Resa til Heliga Landet, förrättad ifrån år 1749 til 1752 med beskrifningar, rön, anmärkningar, öfver de märkvärdigaste naturalier, på Hennes Kongl. Maj:ts befallning, utgifven av Carl Linnaeus. Stockholm [Sweden]: Lars Salvius.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/49678706
Available via Internet Archive @ https://archive.org/details/fredrichasselqui1757hass/page/430/mode/2up

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Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2019/09/hawaii-mamo-feathers-are-like-gold.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 1 September 2019. "Koloa Maoli Hawaiian Ducks Are One Duck Less on Magnum's Sudden Death." Earth and Space News. Sunday.
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Marriner, Derdriu. 3 February 2019. "Makou Hawaiian Buttercups Add No Aconitine to Magnum's I, the Deceased." Earth and Space News. Sunday.
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What2Vue @What2Vue. "CBS released Promotional Photos of Magnum P.I. episode 'A Kiss Before Dying' (1.18 / S01E18) https://what2vue.com/2019/03/11/promotional-photos-of-magnum-p-i-episode-18-a-kiss-before-dying/ #MagnumPI #CBS #PromoPhotos." Twitter. March 11, 2019.
Available @ https://twitter.com/What2Vue/status/1105182360713285633

Zettel, Catherine; and Phillip Kaufman. May 2008. "Common Name: Yellow Fever Mosquito." University of Florida Entomonology & Nematology > Featured Creatures. PAHO/WHO Publication Number: EENY 434. Latest revision March 2013. Reviewed March 2019.
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