Culex (Culex) striatipes Edwards

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 : 90

Culex (Culex) striatipes Edwards

subspecies joanae Muspratt, 1955 —original combination: Culex (Culex) striatipes ssp. joanae . Distribution: Republic of South Africa ( Muspratt 1955).

subspecies striatipes Edwards, 1941 —original combination: Culex (Culex) striatipes . Distribution: Burkina Faso, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Madagascar, Zambia, Zimbabwe ( Wilkerson et al. 2021).

Edwards (1941) described and named Cx. striatipes based on three adults collected in Kenya, a male and a female from Nairobi and a male from Mt Elgon. The larva and pupa of the species were described by de Meillon et al. (1945) from exuviae, derived from two larvae collected at Livingstone, Zambia (as Northern Rhodesia), which were apparently reared to adults that were presumably used to identify the species. Hopkins (1952) repeated verbatim the description of the larva published by de Meillon et al. and included illustrations of the head and terminal abdominal segments which were reconstructed from the two larval exuviae used for the original description. The illustrations included details that were not shown in the drawings provided by de Meillon et al. (1945). Muspratt (1955) described subspecies joanae from six males and six females, one with an associated larval exuviae. The adults were apparently reared from larvae collected “near the Lydenburg to Sabie road over Mount Anderson” in the former Transvaal Province of South Africa. Muspratt stated that the subspecies differed from the typical form “in having no anterior white stripe on the middle femur and the middle tibia either all dark or with at most a faint anterior pale stripe. The hind femur is pale anteriorly only to about half instead of the usual 4/5. The latter character is probably the most reliable distinction as on some otherwise typical specimens from southern Rhodesia [now Zimbabwe] one or more of the white lines on the anterior side of the front and middle femora, and on the middle tibia, are faint or absent. The type series of ssp joanae are rather larger and darker than striatipes from southern Rhodesia.” He stated that the larva “appears to be practically as the typical form”. No further morphotaxonomic work has been published on striatipes , but interestingly Jupp (1996), who included the species (without joanae) in a key to the adult mosquitoes of South Africa, observed that subspecies joanae “is indistinguishable from typical striatipes in the larva, and probably also in the ♂ genitalia. Adult ♀ ’s differ in having no anterior white stripe on the midfemur and midtibia, although midtibia sometimes has very faint stripe. Hindfemur is pale anteriorly only to about 0.5 instead of the usual 0.8.” As so few specimens have been historically collected and studied, it is difficult to know the degree of morphological variation that exists in populations of the species between Zimbabwe and South Africa, indeed throughout the range of the species, which is also imperfectly known. For the time being, we consider that there is insufficient evidence to retain joanae as a subspecies and hereby formally consign it to synonymy: joanae Muspratt, 1955, junior subjective synonym of Culex (Culex) striatipes Edwards, 1941 . Subspecies joanae Muspratt, 1955, which is currently listed as a species in the Encyclopedia of Life, should be removed from the list of recognized species of the genus Culex .