Anopheles (Cellia) fluviatilis James, 1902

Dawah, Hassan A., Abdullah, Mohammed A., Ahmad, Syed Kamran, Turner, James & Azari-Hamidian, Shahyad, 2023, An overview of the mosquitoes of Saudi Arabia (Diptera: Culicidae), with updated keys to the adult females, Zootaxa 5394 (1), pp. 1-76 : 13

Anopheles (Cellia) fluviatilis James, 1902 s.l. ( Fig. 8 )

Type locality. Duars ( Jalpaiguri District ), Nagpur and the Jeypore Hill Tracts, India .

Distribution. This species is found in the Afrotropical, Oriental and Palaearctic Regions ( Azari-Hamidian et al. 2019). In the Middle East, it occurs in Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Oman, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen ( Knight 1953b; Mattingly & Knight 1956; Kouznetsov 1976; Büttiker 1981; Wills et al. 1985; Service 1986; Minář 1991; Glick 1992; van Harten & Wagener 1994; Pecor et al. 2002; Knio et al. 2005; Rueda et al. 2008; Alahmed 2012; Al Ashry et al. 2014; Irish et al. 2016; Alahmed et al. 2019; Azari-Hamadian et al. 2019; Wilkerson et al. 2021). It was recorded for the first time in Saudi Arabia by Mattingly & Knight (1956).

Remarks. The An. fluviatilis complex includes three species, informally designated as species S, T and U, based on polytene chromosome banding patterns observed in populations in southern Asia. The species are not morphologically distinguishable ( Chen et al. 2006; Singh et al. 2006; Harbach 2013; Azari-Hamidian et al. 2019). Alahmed et al. (2019) stated that An. fluviatilis may consist of one or two of these informally designated species in Saudi Arabia. Therefore, it is important to investigate which species of the complex are present in the country.

Medical importance. The An. fluviatilis complex includes important vectors of malaria in Asian countries ( Dev & Phookan 1998). One or more of the species is suspected of being a malaria vector in Yemen ( Kouznetsov 1976; Al-Eryani et al. 2016).

Figures

FIGURE 8. Anopheles fluviatilis s.l., female (Natural History Museum, London, photo by James Turner, National Museum of Wales).