Aedes nigrinus (Eckstein, 1918) (Diptera, Culicidae), a new country record for England, contrasted with Aedes sticticus (Meigen, 1838)

Ralph E. Harbach,Thom Dallimore,Alexander G.C. Vaux,Jolyon M. Medlock,C. Lorna Culverwell,Andrew G. Briscoe

doi:10.3897/zookeys.671.12477

Ralph E. Harbach, Thom Dallimore + Show 4 more

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https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.671.12477

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Abstract

We report the discovery of Aedes nigrinus (Eckstein, 1918) in the New Forest of southern England, bringing to 36 the number of mosquito species recorded in Britain. Because it seems that this species has been misidentified previously in Britain as the morphologically similar Aedes sticticus (Meigen, 1838), the two species are contrasted and distinguished based on distinctive differences exhibited in the adult and larval stages. The pupa of Ae. nigrinus is unknown, but the pupa of Ae. sticticus is distinguished from the pupae of other species of Aedes by modification of the most recent key to British mosquitoes. The history of the mosquito fauna recorded in the UK is summarized and bionomical information is provided for the two species.

Highlights

The number of mosquito species reported to occur in the United Kingdom has increased significantly since Stephens (1825) recognized the presence of 18 species, 14 of which were incorrectly identified or are currently recognized as synonyms of other species
We report the discovery of Aedes nigrinus (Eckstein, 1918) in the New Forest of southern England, bringing to 36 the number of mosquito species recorded in Britain
Adults reared from larvae collected in the New Forest were initially questionably identified as specimens of Ae. sticticus using the keys to British mosquitoes provided by Cranston et al (1987), we ran adults and male genitalia through the keys to European species of Aedes and Ochlerotatus included in Becker et al (2010)

Summary

Introduction

The number of mosquito species reported to occur in the United Kingdom has increased significantly since Stephens (1825) recognized the presence of 18 species, 14 of which were incorrectly identified or are currently recognized as synonyms of other species. Stephens (1825) recognized only two genera, Culex Linnaeus, 1758 for culicine species and Anopheles Meigen, 1818, whereas Lang (1920) used a number of generic names that are currently considered to be subgeneric names or synonyms of contemporary genera, including Culicella Felt, 1904 (subgenus of Culiseta Felt, 1904), Finlaya Theobald, 1903 (subgenus of Aedes Meigen, 1818), Ochlerotatus Lynch Arribálzaga, 1891 (subgenus of Aedes), Taeniorhynchus Lynch Arribálzaga, 1891 (synonym of subgenus Ochlerotatus of Aedes) and Theobaldia Neveu-Lemaire, 1902 (synonym of Culiseta). We report the discovery of Aedes nigrinus (Eckstein, 1918) in the New Forest of southern England, bringing to the number of mosquito species recorded in Britain. Evidence indicates that this species has been misidentified in the past as the morphologically similar Aedes sticticus (Meigen, 1838); the two species are contrasted . The history of the mosquito fauna recorded in the UK is summarized in Table 1, which includes, for completeness, the nominal species catalogued by Verrall (1901)

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