Insecutor Inscitiae Menstruus 



Vol. I SEPTEMBER. 1913 No. 9 



PRELIMINARY CHARACTERIZATION OF THE VEC- 

 TOR OF VERRUGA, PHLEBOTOMUS VERRU- 

 CARUM SP. NOV. 



By CHARLES H. T. TOWNSEND. Uma, Peru 



Although the transmission of verruga by means of the species below 

 described has not yet been accomplished, it is now practically certain 

 from the entomological standpoint, considered in connection with the very 

 peculiar conditions of the verruga zones, that it is the vector, if not the 

 true intermediary host, of the causative organism of the disease. Its char- 

 acterization in this connection is therefore called for. 



Phlebotomus verrucarum, new species. 



Color of fresh specimens pale fuscous-peillid, more or less whitish to 

 watery, invisible on wing by artificial light ; balsam mounts bright very 

 dilute tawny-yellowish, faintly shaded with fuscous on head, mesoscutum, 

 and abdomineil segments ; specimens in fluid pallid-tawny ; dried speci- 

 mens pallid-fuscous with a lens, appearing more deeply fuscous with the 

 binocular, especially with the higher magnifications, legs silvery, wings 

 whitish or silvery except the bordering fringe which appears blackish in 

 direct lights. 



Hairs brownish to blackish in balsam mounts, dry appearing tawny to 

 brownish, those of posterior wing fringe varying from black to white ac- 

 cording to lights. Whole mesoscutum thickly set with long erect curved 

 coarse hairs, these being as long as head including clypeus but excluding 

 proboscis. Scutellum with a thick bunch of similar hairs of same length, 

 segregated from those of mesoscutum. Hairs of clypeus and vertex in 

 two separate bunches, those of latter more numerous, all erect and not 

 quite so long as those of thorax. Hind edge of second abdominal seg- 



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