Uranotaenia (Uranotaenia) novaguinensis Peters

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 : 134-135

Uranotaenia (Uranotaenia) novaguinensis Peters

subspecies alticola Peters, 1963 —original combination: Uranotaenia novaguinensis alticola . Distribution: Papua New Guinea (Peters 1963).

subspecies novaguinensis Peters, 1963 —original combination: Uranotaenia novaguinensis . Distribution: Australia, Papua New Guinea ( Wilkerson et al. 2021).

Peters (1963) described both the nominate form of this species and subspecies alticola , the former reared from larvae collected at the “edge of a slow running stream” near Maprik town in the present-day Maprik District of East Sepik Province in Papua New Guinea, and the latter from a male (holotype) and female collected at Goroka, the capital of the Eastern Highlands Province and Minj in Western Highlands District of Papua New Guinea, respectively. Peters stated that the larva of the nominate form was indistinguishable from the larva of Ur. paranovaguinensis but the pupa differed slightly from the pupa of that species, which he described as a new species in the same paper. He distinguished subspecies alticola from novaguinensis sensu stricto based principally on “less extensive pale hind tarsal scaling in both sexes” and noted that the larval and pupal stages, although “not definitely associated” with the adults, were “apparently indistinguishable, except for slightly greater size, from the type form.” The descriptions of both forms were very superficial, especially for the immature stages, and Peters only crudely illustrated the aedeagus of the nominate form. The following extract from Peters (1963) is insightful.

In the absence of distinguishing features in the females of U. paranovaguinensis and novaguinensis , it is difficult to be dogmatic about their respective distributions.… Males of novaguinensis have been found in association with the former species at Maprik and Koitaki but so far not in the Milne Bay area. Females, so far unidentified, have been found in all three areas as well as at Iamalele (Fergusson Island, D’Entrecastaux Islands, Milne Bay District). No differences could be observed between any of these females.

A series of eight females of this complex [emphasis ours] was taken in a light trap at Yambi (about 15 miles south of Maprik). These were slightly different from “typical” females ….

The highland subspecies alticola has been taken in all three highland districts at altitudes of 5000 feet [1,524 m] and above, but so far nowhere below this altitude. Much more extensive collecting, particularly of associated larvae, pupae and adults is required to define the distribution of this species complex [emphasis ours]. It is most likely that such collecting will reveal not only that the complex is widely distributed throughout the New Guinea mainland, including that of Netherlands New Guinea, but that several other species or subspecies exist that have so far evaded identification.

Peters (1964) diagrammatically compared the lengths of the proboscis and legs of seven Uranotaenia species and the two subspecies of novaguinensis that were known at the time to occur on New Guinea Island. Those comparisons clearly indicate, as observed by Peters (1963), that the male of subspecies alticola is larger than the male of the nominate form, approximately 1.3 times larger, which is a significant difference.

In a summary of what is known about subspecies alticola, Lee et al. (1989b) noted that “Peters (1963d) examined unassociated larvae from Minj which showed no apparent differences from the larva of the type form, n. novaguinensis . At a later date he collected larvae associated with adults of n. alticola which differed at least superficially from the original batch. He concluded that it is possible that more than one species or subspecies of Uranotaenia is present at Minj, although he originally considered that only the form described as n. alticola existed there.” We were unable to find a reference to a “later date” when Peters “collected larvae associated with adults of n. alticola .”

Species of Uranotaenia , especially those of the subgenus Uranotaenia , are markedly “homogeneous” ( Galindo et al. 1954; Peyton 1972). That said, the immature stages of most species are not fully known and have not been adequately studied. In his study of the subgenus Pseudoficalbia in Southeast Asia, Peyton (1977) flatly stated that “The immature stages are extremely diverse and offer many good characters for subgeneric, group and specific determinations. These are often of paramount importance in the diagnosis of species with extremely similar adults and male terminalia [genitalia].” Consequently, in view of differences in body size, pale scaling of the hindtarsi and altitudinal distribution, we believe that features of the immature stages, when definitely known for alticola and fully compared with those of novaguinensis , will show that the two forms are separate species. Accordingly, we hereby formally recognize alticola as a distinct species: Uranotaenia (Uranotaenia) alticola Peters, 1963 . Uranotaenia alticola is currently listed as a species in the Encyclopedia of Life.