Uranotaenia (Uranotaenia) pulcherrima Lynch Arribálzaga

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 : 136-137

Uranotaenia (Uranotaenia) pulcherrima Lynch Arribálzaga

subspecies elnora Paterson & Shannon, 1927 —original combination: Uranotaenia pulcherrima elnora . Distribution: Argentina ( Paterson & Shannon 1927).

subspecies pulcherrima Lynch Arribálzaga, 1891b —original combination: Uranotaenia pulcherrima . Distribution: Argentina, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, French Guiana, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Lesser Antilles (includes Trinidad and Tobago), Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay, Venezuela ( Wilkerson et al. 2021).

The recognition of elnora as a subspecies requires explanation, which was provided by Harbach & Howard (2007): “ Paterson & Shannon (1927) published the name elnora as an addition to a binomen denoting subspecific rank, but labelled it as a new variety: ‘ Uranotaenia pulcherrima Elnora nueva variedad’. In as much as the authors did not unambiguously indicate that the name was proposed for an infrasubspecific entity, it has subspecific rank from the date of its original publication.” However, until Harbach & Howard ruled that the third part of the trinomial must be considered an indication of subspecific rank, elnora was regarded as a variety of pulcherrima , as originally specified ( Edwards 1932a; Lane 1953; Stone et al. 1959; Knight & Stone 1977). That aside, we were surprised to discover that Belkin et al. (1968), in their treatment of the mosquitoes originally described from Argentina, had considered elnora to be a subspecies of pulcherrima : “ Uranotaenia elnora Paterson & Shannon, 1927 [ssp. of pulcherrima ].”

We find it extraordinary that there has been no taxonomic treatment or recognition of elnora as a distinct taxon since it was described by Paterson & Shannon (1927). Lane (1953) listed elnora as a variety but only described the nominate form, with no mention of elnora . Mitchell & Darsie (1985), in keys to the mosquitoes of Argentina, noted: “The type locality of the typical species is Las Conchas, Buenos Aires Province ( Knight & Stone 1977). A valid subspecies, elnora Paterson & Shannon , was described in 1927 from an adult female collected in Tres Posos, Embarcacion, Salta Province. The distribution records given above for pulcherrima ( var. pulcherrima ) include those for var. elnora .” Subspecies elnora is not listed in the recent checklists of the mosquitoes known to occur in Argentina ( Rossi 2015). There is a single COI sequence (658 bp) in GenBank (accession MW363468) obtained from a female of Ur. pulcherrima collected at Formosa, Lahisi Province, Argentina. The sequence was generated in the study of Laurito et al. (2022), who indicated that the “current distribution” of pulcherrima in Argentina includes the provinces of Chaco, Corrientes, Lahisi, Salta and Tucumán. It is noteworthy that Salta Province includes the type locality of elnora .

Paterson & Shannon (1927) provided the following brief description of the holotype female of elnora : “In addition to having the median line and golden scales reduced to a spot, which is normal in typical specimens of pulcherrima , the white rings of the anterior and middle tarsi are missing and the fifth article [tarsomere 5] of the posterior tarsus [hindtarsus] is very dark white” (translated from the Spanish). The significance of the tarsal banding is questionable, as Galindo et al. (1954) pointed out in a taxonomic discussion of Ur. apicalis Theobald, 1903a : “As usual in the pulcherrima -series, the extent of white on the hind tarsal segments [tarsomeres] shows much variation but with no apparent significance as to geographical distribution.”

Since there is no evidence to suggest that elnora is anything more than a variant of pulcherrima , as originally perceived, we believe it is prudent to formally recognize it as a synonymous name: elnora Paterson & Shannon, 1927 , junior subjective synonym of Uranotaenia (Uranotaenia) pulcherrima Lynch Arribálzaga, 1891b . The nominal variety elnora , which is listed as a species in the Encyclopedia of Life, must be removed from the list of valid species of Uranotaenia .

In addition to elnora , Ur.pulcherrima has two other synonyms: Ur.urania Shannon & del Ponte, 1928 (synonymy by Lane 1951) and Ur. pulcherrima var. modesta Martini, 1935 (synonymy by Lane 1953). The former was described from a male and a female captured at Resistencia, Chaco Province, Argentina and the latter was described from a female collected in virgin forest, 5 km south of Rio Cacao (New River?, Orange Walk District), British Honduras (present-day Belize). It is possible that comparative morphological and molecular study of topotypic material may show that Ur. pulcherrima is a complex of species.