Culex (Culex) bahamensis Dyar & Knab, 1906

Cooper, David, Yamaguchi, Nobuyuki, Macdonald, David, Nanova, Olga, Yudin, Viktor, Dugmore, Andrew & Kitchener, Andrew, 2020, Taxonomy, ecology and distribution of the mosquitoes (Diptera: Culicidae) of the Dutch Leeward Islands, with a key to the adults and fourth instar larvae, Contributions to Zoology 89 (1), pp. 373-392 : 382

Culex (Culex) bahamensis Dyar & Knab, 1906

Culex bahamensis was collected in large numbers at two brackish water sites on Sint Maarten ( Lowlands , 18°02’28.7“ N, 63°07’ 28.2” W, in saltwater rockpools; Guana Bay, 18°01’54.6“ N, 63°01’25.9” W, in a puddle on the concrete driveway of an unfinished and abandoned mansion) .

This is in line with all the findings of Van der Kuyp (1948, 1949, 1954), which are also from brackish water. However, this species has also been recorded from fresh water and is occasionally found in artificial containers on other islands ( Belkin et al., 1970). On Sint Eustatius, this species had previously been recorded from a well near ‘Oranjebaai’ by Van der Kuyp (1948, 1949, 1954). Despite our effort to sample from the exact same well (17°29’13.1“ N, 62°59’36.0” W), the species was not found. Instead, we trapped adults of Ae. aegypti at the well and collected large numbers of larvae from the slightly brackish well water.