Description Culex nigripalpus is a medium-sized mosquito. The proboscis is dark and the palpi short. The scutum is brown with fine dark bronze to brown scales. The pleura has few or no scales. Narrow white basal bands are occasionally present on the dorsal surface of some abdominal segments.
Legs are dark with reflective bronze to metallic blue-green scales.
The posterior surface of the femora and tibiae are pale. In general, this is a dark brown, nondescript species with no obvious distinguishing characteristics, making field identification to the species level extremely difficult. In addition, a large number of EEE virus isolates in Florida have come from Cx. Because females prefer to lay their eggs in freshly flooded ditches, there are often long periods, especially during summer droughts, when there are few available oviposition sites. Due to the medical significance of this species, vector surveillance, with the ultimate goal of predicting human cases of SLE virus, is of critical importance.