Studying Culicoides vectors of BTV in the post-genomic era: resources, bottlenecks to progress and future directions.

•Culicoides sonorensis is the only colonized species of bluetongue virus vector.•The development of a fully annotated genome for this species is in progress.•Transcriptomic analyses are being employed to investigate functional elements of the genome, particularly genes involved in hematophagy, reproduction, development and vector competence.