Anopheles (Anopheles) coustani Laveran, 1900

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 : 7

Anopheles (Anopheles) coustani Laveran, 1900 ( Fig. 1 )

Type locality. Madagascar.

Distribution. This species is widespread in the Afrotropical Region and also occurs in the Palaearctic Region ( Wilkerson et al. 2021). In the Middle East and North Africa, it is recorded in Egypt, Israel, Moracco, Oman, Palestine, Saudi Arabia and Yemen ( Mattingly & Knight 1956; Kouznetsov 1976; Minář 1991; Glick 1992; Coetzee 1995; Morsy et al. 1995; Alahmed 2012; Al-Eryani et al. 2016; Tantely et al. 2016, 2017; Lemine et al. 2017; Campos et al. 2020; Irish et al. 2020; Wilkerson et al. 2021). It was recorded for the first time in Saudi Arabia by Mattingly & Knight (1956).

Remarks. The old records of An. hyrcanus in Saudi Arabia were the misidentifications of members of the An. coustani group, including An. coustani and An. tenebrosus ( Mattingly & Knight 1956) . Gillies & de Meillon (1968) noted some morphological variation in bands and stripes on the hindlegs.

Medical importance. This species is generally believed to be a secondary vector of malaria in Africa ( Gillies & de Meillon 1968). Also, the species is involved in the transmission of the namtodes Wuchereria bancrofti and Setaria species and the viruses of endemic Perinet, Rift Valley fever, West Nile and Zika. Additionally, Babanki virus was detected in a mixed batch of mosquito species that included An. coustani ( Tantely et al. 2016) .

Figures

FIGURE 1. Anopheles coustani, female (photo by Rachel Diaz-Bastin, California Academy of Sciences).