Uranotaenia (Uranotaenia) palmeirimi de Meillon & Rebêlo

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 : 135-136

Uranotaenia (Uranotaenia) palmeirimi de Meillon & Rebêlo

subspecies dundo da Cunha Ramos, 1993 —original combination: Uranotaenia (Uranotaenia) palmeirimi dundo . Distribution: Angola (Dundo) ( da Cunha Ramos 1993).

subspecies palmeirimi de Meillon & Rebêlo, 1941 —original combination: Uranotaenia palmeirimi . Distribution: Mozambique, South Africa ( Jupp 1996).

Uranotaenia palmeirimi was supposedly described from a male (holotype) and a female from the Portuguese East African “Colony of Moçambique ”, a northern coastal area of present-day Mozambique , but “Through an error the type locality was omitted from the text originally describing this species. It was taken at Pebane in Quelimane District” ( Worth & de Meillon 1960). Today , Pebane is a town and district in Zambezia Province and Quelimane is the administrative capital of the province.

All accounts of palmeirimi contain confusing contradictions. De Meillon & Rebêlo (1941) described the adult of the species without reference to either sex but indicated that two specimens were examined: “Type ♂ in the collection of the South African Institute for Medical Research [SAIMR], Johannesburg” and “One other female from the same locality.” This was taken by catalogers to denote that the species was described from a male and a female ( Stone et al. 1959; Knight & Stone 1977; Wilkerson et al. 2021). As revealed by da Cunha Ramos (1993), the listing of a type male by de Meillon & Rebêlo was in error, because the holotype is actually a female, which explains the reference to “One other female…”. Despite this, da Cunha Ramos distinguished the male of the typical form from the male and female of subspecies dundo in a key (see below).

Subspecies dundo was named and described based on a series of females from Dundo, Angola, including the holotype female, nine paratype females and 14 topotypic females ( da Cunha Ramos 1993). In view of this, it is disturbing that the author contrasted the female and the unknown male with the unknown male of the typical form, as follows (translated from the Portuguese).

2 ― ♂: With a short but well-defined line of pale scales on the sides of the scutum, above the wing root; ppn [postpronotum] with darker, black lower half................................. palmeirimi palmeirimi

― ♂ ♀: Scutum with only a few light scales above the wing root; ppn uniformly light brown........................................................................................... palmeirimi dundo ssp. n.

Prior to the introduction of subspecies dundo, Service (1990) provided a revamped version of the original description of the female of palmeirimi and indicated that the male was unknown. The irony is that Service preempted da Cunha Ramos (1993) in noting that the type specimen of palmeirimi is a female: “ Holotype female in the collection of South African Institute of Medical Research, Johannesburg, is badly rubbed and has all legs missing except for one hind leg. In addition there is another female in the collection, not marked as a paratype, but with the same date and collection site as holotype; this specimen has only one fore leg, with tarsomere 5 missing, no wings and is badly rubbed.”

Nothing is known about the biology of either subspecies ( Service 1990; da Cunha Ramos 1993). According to published records, palmeirimi sensu stricto has been collected at the type locality on the coast of Mozambique and Richards Bay, a town on the coast of KwaZulu-Natal Province, South Africa ( Worth & de Meillon 1960; Eckard et al. 1988; Jupp 1996, see note below), whereas subspecies dundo is only known from the type locality of Dundo, Angola, where it was collected in gallery forest amid savannah ( da Cunha Ramos 1993) located approximately 24 km south of the border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The type locality of dundo lies approximately 2,000 km northwest of the type locality of palmeirimi sensu stricto. Although the adult males, larvae and pupae of the two nominal forms are unknown, considering the distance between the type localities, the coastal versus savannah environment and the morphological features which clearly distinguish the adult females, we believe that discovery and integrated study of the unknown life stages will reveal that the two forms are distinct species. Consequently, we agree with the Encyclopedia of Life that dundo should be recognized as a separate species, at least until proven otherwise, and we hereby recognize it as such: Uranotaenia (Uranotaenia) dundo da Cunha Ramos, 1993.

Note. Wilkerson et al. (2021), in error, indicated that Jupp (1996) provided illustrations of the male and female of Ur. palmeirimi . Jupp distinguished palmeirimi from Ur. hopkinsi Edwards, 1932b in a key to the adults of the subgenus Uranotaenia in southern Africa, but he did not include illustrations for either of the two species.