| Summary: | Yellow fever and chikungunya outbreaks—and a few dengue cases—have been reported in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in recent years. However, little is known about the ecology and behavior of the adult disease vector species, <i>Aedes aegypti</i> and <i>Aedes albopictus</i>, in DRC. Preliminary studies showed important differences in <i>Aedes</i> behavior in DRC and Latin-American sites. Therefore, this study aimed to assess the host-seeking and resting behaviors of female <i>Ae. aegypti</i> and <i>Ae. albopictus</i>, and their densities in four communes of Kinshasa (Kalamu, Lingwala, Mont Ngafula and Ndjili). Two cross-sectional surveys were carried out, one in the dry season (July 2019) and one in the rainy season (February 2020). We used three different adult vector collection methods: BG-Sentinel 2, BG-GAT, and prokopack. Both <i>Aedes</i> species were clearly exophagic, exophilic, and sought breeding sites outdoors. The adult house index for <i>Ae. aegypti</i> exceeded 55% in all communes except Lingwala, where it was only 27%. The Adult Breteau Index (ABI) for <i>Ae. aegypti</i> was 190.77 mosquitoes per 100 houses inspected in the rainy season and 6.03 in the dry season. For <i>Ae. albopictus</i>, the ABI was 11.79 and 3.52 in the rainy and dry seasons, respectively. <i>Aedes aegypti</i> showed unimodal host-seeking activity between 6 h and 21 h. The exophagic and exophilic behaviors of both species point to the need to target adult mosquitoes outdoors when implementing vector control.
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