Culex (Culex) bisulcatus (Coquillett, 1906)

Cooper, David, Yamaguchi, Nobuyuki, Macdonald, David, Nanova, Olga, Yudin, Viktor, Dugmore, Andrew & Kitchener, Andrew, 2020, Taxonomy, ecology and distribution of the mosquitoes (Diptera: Culicidae) of the Dutch Leeward Islands, with a key to the adults and fourth instar larvae, Contributions to Zoology 89 (1), pp. 373-392 : 383

Culex (Culex) bisulcatus (Coquillett, 1906)

Culex bisulcatus was synonymized with Cx. americanus (NeveuLemaire, 1902) by Dyar (1928), but restored by Stone (1967) as a valid species. Berlin (1969a: 30–34) re-analyzed the material of Van der Kuyp and concluded that the material belongs to Cx. bisulcatus . Material from the Leeward Islands matches the topotypic material from Guadeloupe, except for the number of setae on the 9th tergite lobe of the male genitalia, which are more numerous on those of the Leeward Islands ( Berlin, 1969a). Up to now, this taxonomic problem has not been addressed using modern genetic analysis. Due to a lack of genetic reference material, we were unable to address this problem in the current study. In this study, larvae of Cx. bisulcatus were only observed in bromeliads on Saba. The species was previously also recorded on Sint Eustatius and Sint Maarten ( Van der Kuyp, 1948, 1949, 1953, 1954), but was not retrieved from these locations despite considerable efforts. There are two possible explanations for this. First, climatological conditions were suboptimal for this species during our visit. This may be an explanation for Sint Eustatius, where most of the sampled phytotelmata were dry in comparison to the summer when they may be filled with water. Second, the number of bromeliads was strongly reduced due to urbanization and recent hurricanes on Sint Maarten ( Richardson et al., 2015), as we observed many bromeliads on fallen branches. Despite sampling dozens of bromeliads on Sint Peter Hill and the South Reward, the only remaining habitat on Sint Maarten, no larvae were found.