Culex quinquefasciatus, Say, 1823

Sinclair, Bradley J., 2023, An annotated checklist of the Diptera of the Galápagos Archipelago (Ecuador), Zootaxa 5283 (1), pp. 1-102 : 22

quinquefasciatus Say

Culex quinquefasciatus Say, 1823: 10 . Gerecke et al. 1995: 133 [aquatic invertebrates]; Whiteman et al. 2005:

844 [records]; Fonseca et al. 2006: 285 [pathways of expansion]; Causton et al. 2006: 125 [introduced species]; Causton & Sevilla 2007: 144 [introduced species]; Sinclair 2009: 112 [introduced species]; Levin et al. 2009 [avian malaria]; Asigau et al. 2017: 247 [altitudinal range].

Culex pipiens quinquefasciatus: Peck 1996: 122 [mode of introduction]; Peck et al. 1998: 228 [introduced species].

Distribution. Introduced. Cosmotropical; Galápagos: Baltra, Floreana, Isabela, San Cristóbal, Santa Cruz (see Eastwood et al. 2019).

Remarks. This is a night-biting, domestic mosquito. Larvae are found in foul water, water containers and rain barrels. Adult females are generally believed to be predominantly bird feeders ( Carpenter & LaCasse 1955). This species is a vector of the filarial nematode Wuchereria bancrofti , avian pox Aviposvirus spp. and avian malaria Plasmodium relictum ( Carpenter & LaCasse 1955; Whiteman et al. 2005; Levin et al. 2009).

Culex quinquefasciatus is an introduced species, first recorded in 1985 ( Causton et al. 2006). This species was ranked by Causton et al. (2006) as “highly invasive” because of the high potential impact on the endemic bird fauna as a vector of avian malaria and West Nile virus ( Eastwood et al. 2011, 2019).