A team of scientists from Cambodia and France has identified a new species of giant mosquito in the genus Toxorhynchites.
Toxorhynchites is the sole genus of the mosquito tribe Toxorhynchitini.
It consists of 90 species divided into four subgenera: Afrorhynchus, Ankylorhynchus, Lynchiella and Toxorhynchites.
While the first subgenera is restricted to the Afrotropical region, Ankylorhynchus and Lynchiella are present in the New World and Toxorhynchites is restricted to the Old World.
Members of the genus are large mosquitoes, with a wingspan reaching up to 1.2 cm.
They are often nicknamed elephant mosquitoes due to their large size and bent proboscis.
They are usually very colorful with a body covered with iridescent metallic-colored scales.
“Both sexes possess a large downwardly curved proboscis and are phytophagous, feeding exclusively on nectar or other sugary substances during daytime,” said Dr. Pierre-Olivier Maquart, a researcher in the Medical and Veterinary Entomology Unit at the Institut Pasteur du Cambodge, and his colleagues.
“The larval instars of Toxorhynchites species are predators, feeding primarily on the larvae of other mosquito species, as well as Chironomidae and Tipulidae larvae, dragonfly nymphs or aquatic worms.”
“Due to the peculiar feeding habit of their larvae, Toxorhynchites have been suggested, throughout the second half of the 20th century, to be used as a potential alternative method for vector-control,” they added.
“However, this practice only generated little results.”
In 2021, the authors collected several larvae of Toxorhynchites inside pitchers of the carnivorous plant Nepenthes smilesii during a survey conducted in Veun Sai Siem Pang National Park and in Kirirom National Park in Cambodia.
“The carnivorous plant Nepenthes smilesii is widespread throughout the Indochinese Peninsula and has been recorded from sea level up to 1,000 m in Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam,” they said.
“It is a pyrophyte…
Read the full article here