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Objective:Rice fields are dynamic mosquito larval habitats with assemblage of different predator taxa,inclu-ding the larva of the mosquitoes Lutzia.Entomological surveillance in the ricefields is essential to evaluate the potential of these predators as biological resource to regulate vector mosquito population.In view of this,a sur-vey of ricefields for immatures of different mosquito species including Lutzia was conducted.Methods:Survey of selected ricefields was carried out to evaluate the species composition of mosquitoes.Laboratory evaluation of the immatures of Lutzia mosquitoes was carried out to assess its predation potential using mosquitoes and chi-ronomid as preys.Results:The survey revealed the presence of five mosquito species belonging to the genera Anopheles and Culex and the predatory immatures of the mosquito Lutzia fuscana (Wiedemann,1820).The ra-tio of prey and predatory larva ranged between 1.46 and 4.78 during the study period,with a significant corre-lation on the relative abundance of the larval stages of Lt.fuscanus and Anopheles and Culex larvae.Under la-boratory conditions,a single IV instar larvae of Lt.fuscanus was found to consume on an average 5 to 15 equiv-alent instars of Anopheles sp.and Culex sp.larvae per day depending on its age.The prey consumption re-duced with the larval stage approaching pupation.When provided with equal numbers of chironomid and A-nopheles or Culex larvae,larva of Lt.fuscanus consumed mosquito larvae significantly more compared to chi-ronomids.Conclusion:The survey results and the preliminary study on predation are suggestive of the role of Lt.fuscanus in the regulation of vector mosquito populations naturally in the ricefields.Since Lt.fuscanus is common in many Asian countries,further studies on bioecology will be helpful to justify their use in mosquito control programme.