Insecutor Inscitiae Menstruus 



Vol. II MAY, I9I4 No. 5 



SOME NEW AMERICAN MOSQUITOES 



By DR. E. MARTINI 

 IratUut fur Schlffs- and Tropenkrankhellen, Hamburg, Gerrrtanv 



Lesticocampa espini, new species. 



Female. — Proboscis long and slender, 2.5-2.75 mm., about as long 

 as the abdomen or twice the standard,^ not swollen at tip, entirely clothed 

 with flat brownish black scales, labella acute, dark. Palpi short, about 0.4 

 mm. in side view, or less than one-sixth the length of the proboscis, not 

 quite one-third of the standard, brownish black, with a few outstanding 

 settae. Antennae shorter than the proboscis (2 mm.), bascJ joint four times 

 as long as wide, swollen at middle ; terminal joints increasingly somewhat 

 longer, dark, rugose, with basal white rings, below the whorls of long black 

 bristles ; apical small whorls present, last joints not distinctly white ringed, 

 but with white shining pubescence ; tori brownish black, shining whitish, 

 with apical lighter excavation. Clypeus ovate, nude, blackish. Eyes 

 black, in certain lights bronzy to silvery, broadly contiguous above (the 

 very fine dark separating line corresponds entirely to that of culicivora) ; 

 lowest part of front between eyes and tori a very distinct lighter brown- 



' The standard I introduce here as a unit for measuring the different parts of mosqui- 

 toes and establishing their proportion. It is obvious that the absolute measurements, 

 carefully taken, will always be the main date^ but I must object to such expressions as 

 " proboscis as long as the whole body " or " as long as the abdomen " as the only state- 

 ment. Such expressions are inexact, as the length of the abdomen, and consequently 

 the length of the whole body, differ widely in the same species and depend largely 

 upon physiological circumstances. As the mesothorax is one continuous piece of chitin 

 it seems to me to furnish us the best measurement, if we can find two well-marked points 

 to mark the standard line. The tip of the scutelium is such a point, and so I add the 

 Kutellum to the mesonotum and measure from the tip of the scutelium to the foremost 

 part of the mesonotum above the neck. This measurement may be taken as well in 

 dorsal as in lateral aspect and seems to me largely independent of physiological changes. 



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