Anopheles (Cellia) rupicolus Lewis, 1937

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 : 17-18

Anopheles (Cellia) rupicolus Lewis, 1937 ( Fig. 13 )

Type locality. Jebel Moya , near Sennar, Blue Nile, Sudan.

Distribution. This species is found in the Afrotropical and Palaearctic Regions ( Harbach & Wilkerson 2023). In the Middle East and North Africa, it occurs in Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Yemen ( Knight 1953b; Kouznetsov 1976; White 1980; Zahar 1985; Harbach et al. 1989; Minář 1991; Glick 1992; Brunhes et al. 2000; Abdoon & Alshahrani 2003; Alahmed et al. 2009; Kheir et al. 2010; Alahmed 2012; Lemine et al. 2017; Irish et al. 2020; Wilkerson et al. 2021). Anopheles rupicolus was recorded for the first time in Saudi Arabia by Zahar (1985) (as An. rhodesiensis rupicolus ).

Remarks. Anopheles rupicolus was previously known as a subspecies of An. rhodesiensis Theobald (Type locality: Salisbury, Zimbabwe) ( Harbach & Wilkerson 2023). Gillies & de Meillon (1968), Gillies & Coetzee (1987) and Harbach & Wilkerson (2023) should be consulted for characters that distinguish the two species. Anopheles rhodesiensis occurs mostly in the Afrotropical Region ( Harbach & Wilkerson 2023). Anopheles rupicolus is also recorded in some countries in southwestern Asia and North Africa ( Glick 1992). The name rupicolus is spelled as Lewis (1937) intended to it be spelled. It was correctly spelled in A Synoptic Catalog of the Mosquitoes of the World ( Stone et al. 1959); however, the spelling was changed to rupicola in the second edition of the catalog ( Knight & Stone 1977) and that spelling was subsequently used by many authors, including Glick (1992). As Gillies & Coetzee (1987) explained, the correct spelling is rupicolus . Females of An. rupicolus are distinguishable from females of An. azaniae using characters of the head scales; thus, rubbed specimens may be confused with that species ( Gillies & de Meillon 1968).

Medical importance. Anopheles rupicolus is not known to be a vector species ( Zahar 1985).

Figures

FIGURE 13. Anopheles rupicolus, female (Natural History Museum, London, photo by James Turner, National Museum of Wales).