To identify the core journals that publish articles on mosquito research, the Agricola database (covering 1985-89 citations) was analyzed. This source contained 3,007 citations to mosquito research, and the citations were found in 404 different serials. Whereas 10 serials (2.5% of total serials) in Agricola produced 50% of the citations, almost one-half of the serials in this source contained only one citation to mosquito research. Fifteen journals (the core journals) contained greater than 1% of total citations. The number of citations found among 126 different databases and abstracting services that were examined varied: 39 had no citations to mosquitoes, but 13 (including life-sciences, medical and even popular-literature databases) had greater than 100 citations. The choice of core journals will be an increasingly important decision by biological libraries as costs for journal subscriptions rise.