Culex (Culex) theileri Theobald, 1903

Dawah, Hassan A., Abdullah, Mohammed A., Ahmad, Syed Kamran, Turner, James & Azari-Hamidian, Shahyad, 2023, An overview of the mosquitoes of Saudi Arabia (Diptera: Culicidae), with updated keys to the adult females, Zootaxa 5394 (1), pp. 1-76 : 41

Culex (Culex) theileri Theobald, 1903 ( Fig. 39 )

Type locality. Pretoria , Transvaal, South Africa.

Distribution. This species is found in the Afrotropical, Oriental and Palaearctic Regions ( Azari-Hamidian et al. 2019). In the Middle East and North Africa, it occurs in Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey and Yemen ( Knight 1953b; Lewis 1956; Mattingly & Knight 1956; Abdel-Malek 1960; Margalit & Tahori 1974; White 1980; Büttiker 1981; Harbach 1985, 1988; Harbach et al. 1989; Minář 1991; van Harten & Wagener 1994; Salit et al. 1994; Al-Houty 1997; Amr et al. 1997; Alten et al. 2000; Brunhes et al. 2000; El Khereji et al. 2007; Rueda et al. 2008; Kheir et al. 2010; Al Ahmad et al. 2011; Sulesco et al. 2013; Tantely et al. 2016, 2017; Irish et al. 2016; Tabbabi et al. 2017; Trari et al. 2017; Azari-Hamidian et al. 2019; Simsaa et al. 2021; Wilkerson et al. 2021; Azari-Hamidian & Omrani 2022; Khalefa et al. 2022). It was recorded for the first time in Saudi Arabia by Harbach (1985).

Remarks. The abdominal terga of Cx. theileri normally have basal pale bands that are produced medially into somewhat triangular patches and apical dark scaling that is not interrupted by pale scaling but in a few specimens the posterior dark scaling includes two patches of pale scales ( Harbach 1988; Azari-Hamidian & Omrani 2022).

Medical importance. Culex theileri is a known vector of avian Plasmodium in Portugal ( Ventim et al. 2012), Turkey ( Inci et al. 2012) and Spain ( Ferraguti et al. 2013); avian Haemoproteus in Spain ( Ferraguti et al. 2013); Dirofilaria immitis (canine heart worm) in Portugal ( Santa-Ana et al. 2006; Ferreira et al. 2015), Iran (Azari-Hamidian et al. 2009) and Spain ( Morchón et al. 2011); West Nile virus in South Africa ( McIntosh et al. 1967) and Iran ( Shahhosseini et al. 2020); Sindbis virus in South Africa ( Jupp et al. 1966; McIntosh et al. 1967) and Iran ( Hanafi-Bojd et al. 2021); Japanese encephalitis virus in China ( Wang et al. 2007); and Rift Valley fever virus in South Africa ( Gear et al. 1955; McIntosh et al. 1980). Additionally, some insect-specific flaviviruses were isolated from this species in Myanmar ( Cella et al. 2019), Portugal ( Calzolari et al. 2012; Parreira et al. 2012), Spain ( Calzolari et al. 2012) and Turkey ( Ergünay et al. 2016) that are designated Culex theileri flavivirus. Also, the Wolbachia pipientis endosymbiont has been found in Cx. theileri in Portugal ( de Pinho Mixao et al. 2016) and Iran ( Bozorg-Omid et al. 2020).

Figures

FIGURE 39. Culex theileri, female (Natural History Museum, London, photo by James Turner, National Museum of Wales).