Life Cycle of Culicospora magna (Kudo, 1920) (Microsporida: Culicosporidae) in Culex restuans Theobald with Special Reference to Sexuality1

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Abstract
The life cycle of Culicospora magna (Kudo, 1920) Weiser, 1977, consists of two major developmental sequences that alternate in host individuals of successive generations, each of the sequences starting with a sporoplasm and ending with spores. The first sequence occurs in larval, pupal, and adult stages of a parental generation of the host mosquito, Culex restuans Theobald; it begins with a sporoplasm from an ingested uninucleate spore and progresses through stages in gametogony, plasmogamy, nuclear association, merogony, karyogamy, and disporous sporulation with production of binucleate spores that discharge sporoplasms into the oocytes. The second sequence occurs in egg and larval stages of a filial generation of the same host species; it begins with the binucleate sporoplasm that entered the egg, includes stages in merogony, nuclear dissociation, and mictosporous sporulation, and ends with uninucleate spores. These spores are released into the environment following death of the host and are capable of infecting new parental generation host individuals. The life cycle is conceived as an alternation of generations related to haploidy and diploidy in the nuclei, the transition from haploidy to diploidy occurring with nuclear association and the transition from diploidy to haploidy occurring with nuclear dissociation.
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