Research on the mosquitoes of Angola - Systematic Catalog of ...

RIBgIRO, H. & RAMOS, H. Cunha -- <strong>Research</strong> on the mosquitoes of Angola X
As theileri adults, only 13 unfed females were caught, all of them
in the act of biting man in the outside, from 17.30 to 18.00 hours. The
agressive theileri females were caught during May and June, in the
Calai area, either along the margins of the Cubango river or in the
villages bordering the flood plaine. Here, however, they were never
found inside human habitation.
7.5.27--Culex (Culex) toroensis Edwards & Gibbins, 1939
New record for Angola.
MATERIAL IgXAM][NED. NOVA LISBOA, 6 9 plus 4 c, 31.III, 14.IV
and 13.V. 1970.
TAXONOMIC NOTES AND DISTRIBUTION. Our knowledge on the
morphology, variation, distribution and taxonomy of the tri/ilatus sub-
group (within Edwards' group B or piplens) is still a very unsatisfactory
and scanty one. This seems to be particularly true in the case of the
closed allied species C. toroensis and C. vansomereni and their forms,
arisen during the process of speciation which took place along the
discontinuous montane biomes of East and South Africa and which cer-
tainly extended also to Angolan highlands and mountains.
The form found in Nova Lisboa, at 1,700 m (Map 14), is here
attributed to C. toroensis as none of the specimens has prealar scales,
the anterior surface of hind femur may be dark for as much as the
distal "-/3, and the foliole in the male terrainalia is large, longer than
seta [. The identification of these Angolan specimens with C. toroensis
macrophyllus, however, is quite doubtful, as the arfical lobe of coxite
is deeply divided (as in C. vansomereni vansomereni) and the hind
femur may be dark for only as little as the distal 1/3. It seems that,
in fact, the Angolan form should be better treated as a new subspecies
of C. toroensis. Curiously enough, Mouchet et al. (77) arrived
at a similar conclusion when studying macrophyllus-like material from
Cameroon.
BIOEOOLOGICAL NOTES. Our adult specimens of C. toroensis were
reared in the field laboratory. Unfortunately, however, all the immature
Estud., Ens. e Doc. -- 134 11]