Description of Culicoides truuskae sp. n. (Diptera: Ceratopogonidae) from southern Africa.

ABSTRACT: Culicoides truuskae Labuschagne and Meiswinkel sp. n. is described and illustrated in both sexes from material collected in South Africa and Namibia. It is restricted to the xeric western margin of the subcontinent, occurring in Fynbos, Nama-Karoo and Succulent Karoo ecoregions in South Africa and Desert and Savanna ecoregions in Namibia experiencing 600 mm of rainfall annually. Culicoides truuskae sp. n. is part of the Afrotropical 'plain-wing' Culicoides in which the wing lacks a distinguishing pattern of light and dark spots; the diagnostic dark smudge that traverses wing cell r3 may result in C. truuskae sp. n. being misidentified as the sympatric but phyletically unrelated Culicoides herero (Enderlein) - (of the Similis group, subgenus Oecacta Poey). Additionally, this study is the fi

SUBMITTER: Labuschagne K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10091059 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature