332 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1953 



aspects, was the discovery by Falleroni that females of the apparent 

 European carrier, which he carefully raised, deposited five different 

 types of beautifully ornamented but consistently different eggs, and 

 that a given female always laid the same type of egg. Today it seems 

 incredible that 7 long years elapsed before this significant discovery 

 was properly appraised and applied to the taxonomy of mosquitoes. 

 By means of these discoveries, what had been formerly considered a 

 single but unpredictable and widely distributed form, was found to 

 be in reality several distinct species and distinguishable races. Thus, 

 the hitherto inexplicable behavior of the European malaria mosqui- 

 toes was resolved with the aid of taxonomy, and the way cleared for 

 effective control. 



SPECIES SANITATION 



The exact knowledge of the species of mosquitoes found in any given 

 area is of greatest importance in preventing the waste of effort and 

 funds on unnecessary control measures and permitting full attention 

 to be paid to the dangerous species. Species identification insures a 

 maximum of effective control at minimum cost; we have, therefore, 

 today "species sanitation," as it is called, as the accepted practice in 

 mosquito control. 



A notable instance where species sanitation was most successfully 

 carried out was in the Natal, Brazil, area from 1938 to 1940. It was 

 here that the late Raymond Shannon, formerly with the U. S. Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture, and, at the time, with the Rockefeller Founda- 

 tion, made the startling discovery in 1930 that the dread African 

 carrier of malaria. Anopheles gcmibiae, was on the loose in the New 

 World. Probably shipborne, it brought about, in all, what is said 

 to have been the worst malaria epidemic in history — some 300,000 

 cases, with enormous mortality, in a comparatively limited area. 



At once steps were taken to eliminate this exceedingly efficient 

 carrier from the immediate vicinity of Natal. This was accomplished 

 in the next 12 months, but, rather strange to say, no efforts were made 

 to look farther afield for this highly dangerous insect. It apparently 

 made the most of the opportunity so afforded. Nothing is known of 

 its ravages in the interim. In 1938, however, it caused a serious 

 epidemic of malaria some hundreds of miles inland. This time 

 there was no hesitation. All possible means of control were directed 

 against this much to be feared species. Nothing was left undone to 

 completely eradicate it. In 2 years of intensive effort complete suc- 

 cess was apparently achieved. No trace of Anopheles gainbide seems 

 since to have been found in Brazil. A few airborne individuals, 

 however, have been detected in planes from Africa and promptly 

 destroyed. Here again, species identification proved to be the impor- 



