Posted by totipotent on 19-04-2006 07:17
#5
aleix wrote:
A friend of mine photographed this striking mosquito next to his house, in Girona, in Catalonia. He was afraid it might be an Aedes albopictus, but I've made a Google search and I think it is not, for it should have black and white legs and the antennae are too much plumed.
Has anyone any idea of its identity? Thanks in advance!
Aleix Comas
Aleix,
That Mosquito's antennae are plumed because it is a male. Males only feed on flower nectar. There can be sexual dimorphism between genders of the same species (males look different than females). In addition, there are different strains and species complexes that exhibit different feeding behaviors and colorations. Though, male
Aedes albopictus should have banded legs.
The Walter Reed Biosystematics Unit's 2001 Systematic Catalog of the Culicidae shows only 10 Aedes species in Italy (albopictus, atropalpus, berlandi, caspius, hargreavesi, pulchritarsis, pullatus, rusticus, vexans, and vittatus). So if you haven't had any new introduced species since then, its one of those. If I had a dorsal view, I could tell you for certain.
One clue that leads it to be albopictus is that this male is feeding during the day. Another name for
Ae. albopictus is the "forest day mosquito." That?s just one of the reasons why they are considered a nuisiance. Another is that they don't just get a blood meal and leave... they take multiple feedings, so one mosquito feels like five mosquitoes.
...But it can be atropalpus (see hind femur), pullatus (in USA but I have never seen it) -OR- berlandi, caspius, hargreavesi, pulchritarsis, rusticus, and vittatus (all not in USA). It is definitely not
Aedes vexans.
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