Culex (Microculex) inimitabilis Dyar & Knab

Harbach, Ralph E. & Wilkerson, Richard C., 2023, The insupportable validity of mosquito subspecies (Diptera: Culicidae) and their exclusion from culicid classification, Zootaxa 5303 (1), pp. 1-184 : 102

Culex (Microculex) inimitabilis Dyar & Knab

subspecies fuscatus Lane & Whitman, 1951 —original combination: Culex (Microculex) inimitabilis fuscatus . Distribution: Brazil, State of Rio de Janeiro ( Lane & Whitman 1951; Lane 1953).

subspecies inimitabilis Dyar & Knab, 1906b —original combination: Culex inimitabilis . Distribution: Brazil [(Middle Coastal States, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Pará ( Lane 1953)], Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Lesser Antilles (includes Grenada, Trinidad and Tobago), Panama, Suriname, Venezuela ( Wilkerson et al. 2021).

The subgenus Microculex has not been dealt with since Lane & Whitman (1951) and Lane (1953), and the species are generally very poorly known. Culex inimitabilis was described from larvae, apparently lost ( Stone & Knight 1957a), that were collected in Trinidad. Howard et al. (1915) reproduced the very brief original description of the larva, provided a more detailed description of the larva and described the adult male and female, which established the currently accepted morphological concept of the species. They did not describe the pupa. Dyar (1928) provided a less detailed description of the female, male and larva, but he also did not describe the pupa

Lane & Whitman (1951) established fuscatus as a subspecies of inimitabilis based on specimens reared from larvae collected in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The authors, and also Lane (1953), provided brief descriptions of the female, male, pupa and larva of both forms and distinguished fuscatus based on the following differences: Abdominal terga of the adult female without basolateral white spots (present in the type form), siphon 10–12 times longer than the basal width (8–10 times longer in the type form), abdominal terga II–IV of the pupa with somewhat triangular area of dark pigmentation, the broad areas on terga each with a pair of unpigmented spots (dark area of pigmentation on terga III and IV and a pair of unpigmented spots on III in the type form), pupal seta 5-II nearly twice as long as the tergum (slightly shorter than the tergum in the type form). It is interesting that Howard et al. (1915) described the siphon of the larva of inimitabilis as being about 14 times longer than the basal width, and yet, in agreement with Lane & Whitman, Dyar (1928) indicated that the siphon of the type form is 10 times longer than the basal width, which brings into question the value of the siphon index for distinguishing the two forms. That aside, the differences exhibited by adult females and pupae, coupled with the recorded occurrence of both forms in Rio de Janeiro State, suggests that fuscatus and inimitabilis are separate species that exist in sympatry. Therefore, until additional observations may prove otherwise, we believe it is prudent to recognize fuscatus as a separate species: Culex (Microculex) fuscatus Lane & Whitman, 1951 . Culex fuscatus is currently listed as a species in the Encyclopedia of Life.