﻿PROCEEDINGS OF THE UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 



U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Vol. 100 Wa.hington: 1950 No. 3262 



MOSQUITOES OF THE GENUS TRIPTEROIDES IN THE 

 SOLOMON ISLANDS 



By John N. Belkin 



INTRODUCTION 



From a biological standpoint the Solomon Islands were very poorly 

 known at the beginning of World War II. The flora of the northern 

 Solomons was investigated by German workers in the nineteenth cen- 

 tury, but our knowledge of the botany of the Solomons as a whole is still 

 extremely fragmentary. In the Animal Kingdom, the work of Mayr 

 et al. (1931 fl'.) on the birds collected by the Wliitney Expedition 

 stands out as the only really thorough large-scale investigation under- 

 taken in this part of the world. In no other group of animals do we 

 have anything but inklings of the Solomons' fauna. Yet this group 

 of islands occupies an extremely interesting position in the dispersal 

 of Papuan forms into the islands of Polynesia. The latter are much 

 better known faunistically, but little can be done about interpreting 

 the origin of their animals until the Solomons are better known. Ex- 

 cept for small groups, the insects of the Solomon Islands were prac- 

 tically unknown at the beginning of the war. The mosquitoes were 

 probably as well known as any other family, but only 29 species and 

 subspecies had been reported (Paine and Edwards, 1929) from the 

 entire group. 



During the war many entomologists were stationed in the Solomons 

 and were able to accumulate large collections of mosquitoes and other 



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