Culicada nipponii, (Theobald, 1907) (Theobald, 1907)

Harbach, Ralph E. & Wilkerson, Richard C., 2023, The insupportable validity of mosquito subspecies (Diptera: Culicidae) and their exclusion from culicid classification, Zootaxa 5303 (1), pp. 1-184 : 17-18

Subspecies nipponii

Subspecies nipponii was described from a single “perfect ♀ ” from Karnizana , Japan [Karuizawa, Nagano Prefecture]. Theobald (1907) wrote: “proboscis with scattered golden scales, with black apex, palpi mottled.” “Abdomen with the basal segment testaceous, with a median patch of creamy scales and rather short pale golden hairs; the second and third segments with basal uniform creamy bands; on the fourth, fifth and sixth the bands spread out laterally, forming marked lateral areas; the sixth and seventh have yellow apical scales, and the second to the fifth have median pale scales which form a broken median line; venter pale scaled.” A distinguishing character is the median pale abdominal scales.

Reinert (1973) did a comprehensive study of vexans vexans and vexans nipponii as part of a study of the subgenus Aedimorphus in Southeast Asia. He treated vexans vexans as a single variable worldwide species. He characterized subspecies nipponii in the adult female as follows: “Abdomen with terga III, IV each with an incomplete apical median longitudinal white stripe which may or may not connect with basal bands; lower subspiracular scale patch connects, or nearly so, with postspiracular scale patch.” In the pupa, the two were very similar but could be separated from other related species by having the “Ventral posterior margin of II [tergum II] with spicules mesally.” In the larval stage, he contrasted vexans vexans in Southeast Asia with subspecies nipponii by the presence of a granulose frontoclypeus in the former not present in the latter. This granularity is rarely seen in the rest of the range, sensu Reinert (1973), of the putative subspecies vexans . To us, it could also indicate a separate species in Southeast Asia.

Tanaka et al. (1979) stated that only vexans nipponii occurs in Japan, Korea and the eastern Palearctic, and thus they did not provide a complete comparison of it and vexans vexans . As described by Theobald (1907) and Reinert (1973), Tanaka distinguished nipponii by noting that “Subspecies nipponii is chiefly characterized by the presence of pale median patches on the anterior abdominal terga of the adults.” The larva of subspecies nipponii is like the larva of typical vexans but setae 5–7-C are distinctly aciculate, as are setae 1,3,5-VIII.

Because of its Palearctic distribution and distinct morphological characters, we believe subspecies nipponii should be afforded species status: Aedes (Aedimorphus) nipponii ( Theobald, 1907) . Synonyms: None. Aedes nipponii needs to be added in the list of Aedes species recognized in the Encyclopedia of Life.