Using a pupal exuvia to designate the undamaged neotype of a species belonging to a complex of sibling species – the case of Aedes coluzzii (Diptera, Culicidae)

Audric Berger (1) , Gilbert Le Goff (1) , Philippe Boussès (1) , Nil Rahola (1) , Jean-Baptiste Ferré (2) , Diego Ayala (1, 3) , Vincent Robert (1)

1 MIVEGEC - Maladies infectieuses et vecteurs : écologie, génétique, évolution et contrôle
2 EID - Entente Interdépartementale pour la démoustication du littoral méditerranéen
3 IPM - Unité d'Entomologie Médicale [Antananarivo, Madagascar]

The mosquito species Aedes (Ochlerotatus) coluzzii Rioux, Guilvard & Pasteur, 1998 was distinguished from its sibling species Aedes detritus (Haliday, 1833) using an isoenzymatic method that required the destruction of the entire specimen, therefore no holotype was designated by the species authors. We aimed to designate a neotype for Ae. coluzzii from specimens collected from the type-locality and individually reared up to adult stage. Genomic DNA was extracted from pupal exuvia and ITS2 was sequenced, enabling verification of the identity of each specimen as Ae. coluzzii or Ae. detritus. Among the series of Ae. coluzzii, a male was designated as neotype and deposited in a collection. To our knowledge, this is the first time the type of a mosquito species is deposited thanks to its molecular identification from its pupal exuvia. The set of identified specimens allowed additional phylogenetic and morphologic studies.

Mots clés: Mosquito; Neotype; Molecular identification; Species complex; Aedini; Aedes detritus

Domaines: Sciences du Vivant [q-bio]

Audric Berger, Gilbert Le Goff, Philippe Boussès, Nil Rahola, Jean-Baptiste Ferré, et al.. Using a pupal exuvia to designate the undamaged neotype of a species belonging to a complex of sibling species – the case of Aedes coluzzii (Diptera, Culicidae). Parasite, 2022, 29 (19), pp.1-8. ⟨10.1051/parasite/2022020⟩. ⟨hal-03623918⟩