Abstract
A detailed description of the cibarial armature of the Neotropical mosquitoes Mansonia titillans, Psorophora cingulata, Coquillettidia arribalzagae, Culex coronator and Limatus durhamii, is presented. A sample of 15 specimens of each species was taken from the collections of two mosquito ecological projects located at Santa Clara, San Carlos, Alajuela and from La Selva, Sarapiqui, Heredia, Costa Rica. Each specimen, preserved in alcohol, was cleared, put into a mounting medium, head separated from body and eyes pinched to expose the cibarial armature and sense organs; finally a coverslip was added for a permanent slide. The bodies of all the mosquitoes were also mounted onto slides. The descriptions of the cibarial armatures were based on the characteristics of the dome, body, transversal bar, lateral flanges and cibarial teeth. Also the number, distribution and type of the sense organs are given. From the analysis, and comparison with known descriptions of other neotropical species, we conclude that the five species studied show enough characteristics for species recognition purposes.
Highlights
The study of mosquitoes of human and veterinary importance must be a basic approach in an integrated management of vector control, especially in the neotropics
The observations were based on samples of 15 females of each species previously identified as Mansonia titillans (Walker, 1848), Psorophora cingulata, (Fabricius, 1805), Coquillettidia arribalzagae (Theobald, 1903), Culex coronator Dyar and Knab, 1906 and Limatus durhamii Theobald, 1901
Based on the structure of the cibarial armature (CA), the five species of mosquitoes we have studied from Costa Rica (Mansonia titillans, Psorophora cingulata, Coquillettidia arribalzagae, Culex coronator and Limatus durhamii) might be distinguished by the following characters: The CA in Mansonia species has not been studied previously
Summary
The study of mosquitoes of human and veterinary importance must be a basic approach in an integrated management of vector control, especially in the neotropics. In mosquitoes the use of the CA in taxonomy has been limited to a few studies, basically those of Sinton and Covell (1927), Barraud and Covell (1928), Lane (1953), Valencia (1973), Lee (1974), Sirivanakarn (1978), and Lee and Craig (1983) Few authors, such as Lane (1953), Valencia (1973), Sirivanakarn (1978), have described or figured the CA of neotropical culicine species reported from Costa Rica. Four ventral papillae are present for all species except for one with two and another without such papillae
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