A monograph of the Anopheles mosquitoes of India / by S.P. James and W. Glen Liston.

  • Sydney Price James
Date:
1904
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: A monograph of the Anopheles mosquitoes of India / by S.P. James and W. Glen Liston. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    90/238 (page 68)
    Group /. viz. :—A. harhirostris, which has entirely black palpi and very broad spindle-shaped scales, and A. nigerrimiis, which has four bands on the palpi and less broadly spindle shaped scales. These two represent the common types of these mosquitoes in India. The larvae of this group are very characteristic and can readily be distinguished from all other ‘‘anopheles” larva?. The external frontal hairs have a brush- like appearance forming the so-called “ cockades.” The antenna? have a large branching hair on their inner sides. The pupa is also characteristic (as was first pointed out by Cogill) and can readily be distinguished by the shape of the breathing horns. The tube, before expansion, arches up over the dorsum of the thorax almost meeting that of the opposite side in the middle line, and is then bent on itself at right angles to the dorso-ventral plane of the pupa, thereby becoming inverted U shaped. The tube at its outer ex- tremity expands into a cavity, somewhat resembling the shape of an open mussel shell. The enveloping membrane of the eggs of the mosquitoes of this group consists of a layer of cells of extremely regular hexagonal outline more regular than in the eggs of any other “ anopheles.” Breeding places.—The larva? are generally found separately or scantily in pools overgrown with weed, hence tanks are common breeding grounds. O O Observation.—This group is practically Theobald’s genus Myzorrhynchus. We have retained the name nigerrimus, although the description given under that name of the type specimen in the British Museum in Theobald’s “ Culicida3 of the World,” Vol. I, page 145, does not quite correspond with the specimens we have found in India ; indeed we have never noted a specimen with black tips to the palpi. Our type most nearly corresponds with Theobald’s description of Myzorrhynchus minutus, but our drawing was made from a very large specimen, one of the largest “ anopheles” we have seen ; the name minuUis would therefore be misleading. The following recorded species in other countries than India belong to this group :—umhTOsus (Theobald), cilhotaeniatus (Theo- bald), sinensis (Wiedmann), malayensis (Theobald), pseudopictus (Grassi), mauritianiiA (Grandpre), paZucfe (Theobald), tenehrosus (Donitz), Ijancroftii (Giles). 68]