Anopheles (Cellia) sergentii ( Theobald, 1907 )

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 : 18-19

Anopheles (Cellia) sergentii ( Theobald, 1907) ( Fig. 14 )

Type locality. Algeria.

Distribution. This species is found in the Afrotropical, Oriental and Palaearctic Regions ( Azari-Hamidian et al. 2019; Wilkerson et al. 2021). In the Middle East and North Africa, it has been recorded in Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen ( Knight 1953b; Mattingly & Knight 1956; Margalit & Tahori 1974; Kouznetsov 1976; White 1980; Büttiker 1981; Wills et al. 1985; Service 1986; Harbach et al. 1989; Ramsdale 1990; Minář 1991; Glick 1992; van Harten & Wagener, 1994; Morsy et al. 1995; Amr et al. 1997; Brunhes et al. 2000; Abdoon & Alshahrani 2003; Rueda et al. 2008; Alahmed et al. 2009; Al Ahmad et al. 2011; Alahmed 2012; Mahyoub et al. 2015; Al-Eryani et al. 2016; Tabbabi et al. 2017; Trari et al. 2017; Azari-Hamadian et al. 2019; Irish et al. 2020; Wilkerson et al. 2021; Khalefa et al. 2022). It was recorded for the first time in Saudi Arabia by Mattingly & Knight (1956).

Remarks. Mattingly & Knight (1956) examined larvae of An. macmahoni Evans (Type locality: Isiolo, Kenya) from Yemen and considered them to be those of An. sergentii and confined An. macmahoni to ‘the African portion of the Somali Arid District’ and ‘certain mountains in the southern Anglo-Egyptian Sudan’. Anopheles macmahoni was previously considered to be a subspecies of An. sergentii until it was restored to species status by Harbach & Wilkerson (2023). Gillies & de Meillon (1968), Gillies & Coetzee (1987) and Harbach & Wilkerson (2023) should be consulted for characters that distinguish the two species.

Medical importance. Anopheles sergentii is a primary vector of malaria in many countries ( Sinka et al. 2010) but in Saudi Arabia it is only a secondary vector ( Mattingly & Knight 1956; Zahar 1985, 1990; Khater et al. 2013). It is a suspected malaria vector in Yemen ( Kouznetsov 1976; Al-Eryani et al. 2016), and Rift Valley fever virus has been detected in females ( Wilkerson et al. 2021).

Figures

FIGURE 14. Anopheles sergentii, female (Natural History Museum, London, photo by James Turner, National Museum of Wales).