Aedes (Rusticoidus) rusticus ( Rossi, 1790 )

Kirik, Heli, Tummeleht, Lea & Kurina, Olavi, 2022, Rediscovering the mosquito fauna (Diptera: Culicidae) of Estonia: an annotated checklist with distribution maps and DNA evidence, Zootaxa 5094 (2), pp. 261-287 : 279-280

Aedes (Rusticoidus) rusticus ( Rossi, 1790)

Published sources: None.

Voucher material: None.

Comment: Aedes rusticus has been recognized as a species in Estonia in several mosquito checklist ( Khalin & Aibulatov 2020; Snow & Ramsdale 1999; Robert et al. 2019). However, as was pointed out by Huldén & Huldén (2014) Ae. rusticus has been referred to historically by the synonym Ae. maculatus , but that name has also been mistakenly applied to Ae. cantans . In fact, the first checklist of mosquitoes in Estonia by H. Remm also included Ae. maculatus , but the number of specimens collected, as well as the description of their bionomics indicates that the species is Ae. cantans , not Ae. rusticus . This misunderstanding may be the reason why Ae. rusticus has been reported to be present in Estonia, although no verified specimens have been collected in the country. However, Ae. rusticus has also been thought to be present in Lithuania ( Pakalniškis et al. 2000) and Latvia ( Spungis 2000), and has been reported from Sweden ( Lundström et al. 2013). Therefore, this species could also be present in Estonia.

Genus Anopheles Meigen, 1818

Anopheles daciae Linton, Nicolescu & Harbach, 2004 (in Nicolescu et al. 2004)

Published sources: None.

Voucher material: None.

Comment: It can be difficult to distinguish An. daciae from An. messeae based on morphology. Nucleotide polymorphisms in ITS2 sequences are currently the best way to distinguish these two species, but this was not done in this study. Anopheles daciae has been reported from Finland ( Culverwell et al. 2020; Culverwell et al. 2021), and could also be present in Estonia.